Piece of sailing history gets facelift

(NECN: Brian Burnell, Mystic, Conn.) - A piece of American history is coming out of the water. The only wooden whaling vessel left in the world needs restoration, and it's about to get those repairs at the Mystic Seaport. The Charles W. Morgan is Mystic Seaport's signature vessel. Built in 1841, she's the last surviving wooden whaling ship. She's coming out of the water this weekend for the start of a three-year, $5 million restoration. "There's divers in the water looking at everything along the bottom of the boat. On top of the cradle there are blocks and if they need to put some additional blocks in there to firm it up they do that. They adjust the sides so its tedious, its painstaking but its absolute, 100 percent necessary in order to haul it safely and properly," says Michael O'Farrell of Mystic Seaport. About a dozen people stand by on lines to pull her a little bit this way and a few inches that way. "When you're lifting something that weighs more than 200 tons at this point which this does and it's the only one left in the world and it's a national historic landmark you need to take pretty good care of it," says O'Farrell. Once the Morgan's out of the water she'll be hauled onto this concrete pad and the bottom will be washed down. The residue from that will be collected in tanks through these drains and that residue will be cleaned before its put back into the river. And then she'll be shoved over into this area and this is where the actual restoration will begin. "First and foremost is surveying the vessel and understanding the areas that we're working on and what needs to be done and a lot of this, quite frankly, we're not going to know for sure until we start pulling it apart," says O'Farrell. They will focus on the wood that's underwater. Mystic Seaport has gathered 300 tons of 100-year-old oak, most of it from trees knocked down by Hurricane Katrina, to use in the restoration.