PRST STD
THE STATE OF MAINE'S BOATING NEWSPAPER
U.S. Postage Paid, #256
Bangor, Maine 04401
Maine Coastal News
Volume 23 Issue 4 April 2010 FREE
ROBERT RICH AND CREW BUILDING A WOODEN BOAT
BERNARD – Unfortunately there are few a boat before, Rich said, “They’re doing This is going to have bunks, a galley and captains, but they were all oceangoing
wooden boatbuilders, building new wooden really good, considering. They both have head down below, basically a comfortable people except for one, he was a horse thief
boats today. Some of these builders could do been around boats all their life. One reads a weekender. She has been constructed with and they hung him.”
it, but the aches and pains from their bodies lot so if something comes up he goes home cedar over oak and bronze fastened. The oak His grandfather built mostly small
have told them to stop. Students are coming and finds a book and reads about it. That’s frames are inch think and the cedar planking rowboats, some sailboats and a powerboat
out of the boat schools with the knowledge, not like practical experience of course but he is 7/8 inch. The screws are 1½ #12 bronze. All here and there at the shop Rich now operates
but the demand is not there. Will it ever be has a pretty good idea. They are doing the deadwood fastenings are ½-inch bronze. out of. His grandfather also built houses
again, may be, but more likely it is will be a good.” The deck and all the superstructure will be around Mount Desert Island. At the end of
purist here and there that will order one, Well, one also wanted to build a small plywood glassed over. As for power she will the 1930s his father purchased the shop on
keeping shops like Robert “Chummy” Rich’s cruiser, which he could use going up and have a 300 hp Chevy, Mercruiser, gas engine the water. Rich said, “He built two with three
in Bernard busy in between repair work. down the coast of Maine. He added, “He was with a one and half to one gear. Rich added, boats down there then the war came along
Last fall, two local residents came to interested in having a cruiser built, small “Part of the reason for the small gear is this and he went over to Southwest Boat. They
Rich asking if he could help them build a fiberglass one. Well in the course of doing boat isn’t very deep so to swing a big enough were building personnel boats and
wooden rowboat. Rich explained, “They this wooden rowboat we talked him into wheel on a 2 to 1, which you probably ought minesweepers. A couple of years later he
brought over something that looked like a having a wooden cruiser. This is my father’s to have, it would come too close to the started back building boats and he was there
pumpkin seed made out of quarter inch design from back in the 1950s. He and me, bottom of the boat and the high-speed until he died in 1981. That is when I took it
plywood with a layer of epoxy cloth or resin after I came in the business in 1959, built quite propeller has a tendency to eat the bottom of over.”
on the outside of it. I shot that down quite a few of these, 26, 28 and 30 feet long. I can’t the boat away. So we went to a one and half Robert Rich built a number of wooden
quick. One trip up the beach and that would tell you how many but quite a few, seven or to one.” boats, some commercial, some pleasure. A
have been the end of that and it wouldn’t eight anyways. Some of them are just open The owner is looking for a 1 July couple of them were nice little pleasure tugs.
have rowed good anyways. It just looked like boats, and some of them cabin cruisers.” launching, however Rich told him, “we could Rich took it over with his brother Walter,
a doughnut. I got looking around and I knew There was not a set of plans at the office do it, but he might have to use an oar or raise who decided to finish off a boat for himself,
where there were some rowing dories and and they hoped that when they had donated a sail to go anywhere.” aptly named MY SHARE, and go lobster
they decided that is what they wanted.” some of Rich’s father’s (Robert Rich) One of the cardinal sins is letting the fishing. In the mid-1990s Rich got out of boat
This rowing dory was to Rich’s drawings to the Penobscot Marine Museum owner help on his own boat. Usually it adds building and repairing and went boat
grandfather’s (Clifton Rich) design, but with in Searsport, there might be one there. hours to the building process, but in this transporting. He added, “That got old quite
some modifications. Rich added, “Actually Unfortunately, there was not, but one of the case it is easy to see that all involved are quick. I did 15 years of that before I got back
my grandfather had done the same thing in workers had a 28 footer. Rich added, “We having a great time and loving every minute in the boat repairing and boatbuilding.”
some of them that he built. He put a little bit used the lines from his boat, and I had part of of it. Their niche has been wooden boat and
of dead rise in the bottom. He thought it made the lines, I didn’t have all of them, so I kind The shop that Rich is working out of was over the years they have stayed pretty busy,
them row better, I don’t know whether it of had to fill in the blank spots a little bit. So the shop his grandfather built in. When mostly repairing them, although a fiberglass
doesn’t not.” we had to start right from scratch from lofting asked about what passed generations did, one sneaks in here and there. If you are
One dory is nearing completion at the it out on the floor and making all the Rich said that they all were sailors. He added, looking to build or need a wooden boat
shop and considering that neither had built patterns.” “I’m not sure whether they were sea repaired, do not overlook Chummy Rich.
C o n t e n t s
Newman 36 Model 4
J. B. Turner Joins Kenway Corp. 9
Commercial Fishing News
Manset Marine 19
Calendar of Events 4
Obituary: Capt. Kittredge 9 Miscellaneous News 12 Classified Ads 24-31
Waterfront News
Penobscot Marine Museum News 10 Boat Yard News 14
Steph Helms 7
Pemaquid Marine 11 Book Review: Red Star Rouge 18
Maine Built Boats News 8
Solar Units to Haiti 11 Book Review: Scorpion Down 18
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