You will be contacting Unity Lodge No. 4 to see what additional records that they have.I am making great progress solving this mystery. I contacted the people at Bluenose II and received a very quick reply with a link to this video:
It seems that the Bluenose was built and owned by three masons including the captain and it was very much a Masonic project. (This video also includes some of the clearest pictures of the Bluenose that I've seen yet.)
So that answers the first part of my question. Now I just have to discover when and why the Masonic emblem was changed to the three links and whether or not it is in fact the Odd Fellows emblem, but I increasingly suspect that it is.
The person at Bluenose II also told me that there is still a Masonic Lodge in Lunenburg, so I'll contact them and see what information they can provide and I'll search and see if I can find an Odd Fellows Lodge as well.
Soon I will have to decide where my loyalties lie - with the Masons or the Odd Fellows and which way I want to depict the model. I have never been much interested in fraternal organizations (I tend to not join things that require a costume), so I think it will come down to which design is easier to duplicate and I have a feeling I already know the answer to that question, but we'll see.
Great research on you part. Rich