Finger Lakes Boating Museum to auction 100 vessels

After collecting wooden boats built in the Finger Lakes for more than a decade, the Finger Lakes Boating Museum has decided to sell some boats from its collection of more than 100 vessels.The Auction will take place Saturday, Sept. 21, starting at 10 a.m. at the Museum storage site, 8231 Pleasant Valley Road, Hammondsport.Ed Wightman, Museum President and Chair of its Collections Committee, said that the boats in the auction are “project boats,” meaning they are not in excellent restored condition. “We are offering them because they are either duplicates or boats that we have not been able to identify their origin,” explained Wightman.The Museum, which collects only boats made in the Finger Lakes, often receives boats from donors that are in need of restoration. Museum members have restored a number of boats in the Collection.The collection of boats is now stored in a former Mercury Aircraft warehouse on Pleasant Valley Road in Hammondsport. The auction will take place in the parking lot adjacent to the warehouse. The following boats will be auctioned:· Sailboats –Ten boats, including three K-Boats by Wright, a Comet and a Lightning by Skaneateles, a Ro-Mo-Sail, a Phantom and Sailing Dinghy by Penn Yan, a Laser and a Bauer cat rigged sloop.· Rowboats – Two boats, a Rowboat and a Troutboat, builders unknown;· Canoes – Three canoes, including an HW by Old Town, an Owasco by Penn Yan and another built by Bauter;· Row-Outboard – Five boats, two Trailboats, two Car Toppers and a Sr. Car Top, all built by Penn Yan Boats; and· Outboard Runabout – Two boats, an Angler and one that may be made by Thompson.Photographs of the boats to be auctioned will be on the Museum’s website at ww.flbm.org. The website contains information about the Museum’s collection and its mission of education, restoration and preservation.The Boating Museum has assembled a collection of more than 100 wooden boats built in the Finger Lakes over the past 100 years, as well as numerous related artifacts and extensive reference material.The boating museum is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation and was chartered by the New York State Department of Education in 1997 to “research, document, preserve and share the boating history of the Finger Lakes region.”