old ship building plans

Is there a way to find building plans or diagrams of a ship that was built by a defunct company in Canada? The ship was built in the 20's and the shipbuilder changed owners shortly after. The new owner built ships into the mid 50's, but are now gone as well. The company that operated the ship is no longer in buisness. Did the Canadian government keep any records like this? Would they be accessable to the public? Any leads would really be appreciated, Bell47.

Try insurance companies.

Who may have insured ships in the 40' ? 

LLoyds of London.

I spent most of a day on Lloyds website trying to find a link to past claims or something of the sort. Nothing. Maybe I missed something. Do I need to contact them with a letter? If so what department do I send it? This is a war sinking(sunk by a u-boat) so was an insurance claim even filed? I was told that insurance companies didn't pay for war loses? If there was no claim, would the Lloyds have even kept records of it? What in the heck do you tell them? "Hello Lloyd's, I need deck plans for a ship you guys insured back in 194*. Nope, wasn't my ship, or even my country's ship, but send me those deck plans asap thanks." Seems like they wouldn't just give  away/sell plans for something that wasn't my claim. We don't want to salvage anything(it's a war grave and should be left alone as far as salvage goes) so I can't approach it as a salvor to buy the salvage rights. Any advice would be helpful. Guys thank you for your help this is all pretty new to me.

Lloyd's won't typically carry deck plans.

A decent place to start is http://www.mariner.org/library/selected-plans-drawings

If it was a WW2 merchant sinking by a uboat, check http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ and see the details of the vessel, shipyard, etc. Then you can consider visiting one of the many NARA (National Archives) locations for possible plans. You can contact one or more of these forums and ask...
http://www.pcez.com/~artemis/NASAlinks.htm

You may even get lucky on Google books or Google images.

There's no "right" way to find ship plans, but with persistence, you'll discover more avenues.

Most of the steamers built in the early 1900s were very similar. Tramp steamers, Hog Islanders, Ocean Class, Liberty's, etc had a basic layout common to each other with a few variations in the centerhouse arrangement. Let me know if I can help.

All the best,
Darren

NY Maritime College has old Lloyds of London registers. In addition you may want to check out Mystic Seaport Museum. They have an extensive collection of ships plans. You may also try http://americanhistory.si.edu/csr/shipplan.htm or http://history.navy.mil/

Good luck.

J~