Page 20. MAINE COASTAL NEWS July 2010 LOBSTERS: A 1950s Trip in a Lobster Smack


By Arthur S. Woodward PROLOGUE


This story begins in Beals, Maine. The story is based on an actual trip in the lobster smack Arthur S. Woodward. Much of the story reflects actual events during this trip. Beals is an island across the Moosabec Reach from Jonesport. The Reach is a west to east stretch of water approximately four miles long that separates Beals and neighboring islands from the mainland. Beals is about midway between the ends of the Reach, where the Reach is about a half mile wide. A few years after this trip occurred a bridge was built to connect Beals and Jonesport. The Arthur S. Woodward played a significant historical part in the beginning of the bridge, towing the barge that brought the power shovel to the island to begin the Beals end, and towing the first barge loads of concrete for the bridge piers. Beals is 56 miles from Ellsworth and 20 miles from Machias. Some 35 miles to the west from Beals Acadia National Park’s Cadillac Mountain can be seen. Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada, is about 35 miles to the east from Beals. This story will be appealing to those who like boats and being on the water, and to those interested in things maritime, whether adventure or history. So, hurry up and get aboard for a trip in a lobster smack. We’re going away! *****


In Beals it is just growing daylight and thick-a-fog as Dad (Vernal) and I get to the wharf with our two small pieces of luggage and boxes of grub for the trip. It is a summer morning in the early 1950s, when I was maybe 18 years of age. We’d gone to the store last evening and bought groceries, enough to last four men for three days. Also in prepara- tion we’d gotten fuel and water, and we had kindling wood and hard coal for the Shipmate range down in the foc’sle. We had everything in readiness for our trip in the lobster smack. Because of the size of the crew and the time we would be gone we’d taken on an extra tub of fresh water and put it down for’ard in the cabin floor. Dad had tossed a small stick into the water, and said it would keep the water from sloshing out in a sea. Sure enough, the


water didn’t spill. The others of our crew gather at the wharf and we proceed down under the shore to the dory, in which we’ll row out to the smack. The smack is on her moor- ing, barely visible to us in the semidarkness and that thick dungeon fog. It is that kind of pea soup fog that makes everything wet. Our crew is Dad, the skipper and owner (“Cap’n V. O.”), Capt. Stevie Peabody (“Cap’n Guns”), Capt. Ami Peabody (“Cap’n Mike”), and myself (“Cap’n Arthur”-yes, some around home called me that. Later on I did hold the captain’s papers for the Kenneth D., our sardine boat which I skippered to tow the barge loaded with concrete in building the Jonesport – Beals bridge). Stevie and Ami were brothers and they were both retired captains of schooners, the sailing “coasters” that were the seagoing “trucks” of the coast. Many of the coasters were converted into “windjammers” that became so popular for passenger cruises.


We load the provisions and our sparse luggage and all get in the dory and shove off. In a few minutes we row up alongside our smack, the Arthur S. Woodward. There is something about how a smack looks on the mooring that is very special. They look stable, able, settled, sturdy, seaworthy, trim, and ready for sea; in a word, beautiful. They are adapted to their environment, much as a duck is suited to water.


A smack is a vessel built with a well that has the free circulation of sea water to keep lobsters or fish alive until they are unloaded. Smacks are used in various parts of the world. A lobster smack had the well amidships. The well had vertical watertight bulkheads fore and aft up to the waterline. From the tops of the bulkheads and in from the sides of the smack four watertight well decks sloped in- ward from the waterline up to the hatch coamings. The hatch was a rectangular open- ing in the deck of the smack. The hatch opening would be covered with hatch covers that were flush with the deck. A superstition was that you never turned hatch covers up- side down, because if you did it was a sign the vessel would sink. The well had a middle partition that ran fore and aft. In bigger


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smacks, such as ours, there was a transverse partition, so the well was divided into quar- ters up to the waterline. The partitions kept the lobsters from sloshing around too much when it was rough, and they also served as a fulcrum when bailing lobsters as well as a surface to help get the lobsters into the dip net when unloading. The bottom of the smack in the well was bored full of holes, hence the designation “wet well smack”. The partitions were also bored full of holes, so the sea water could circulate well, and provide the lobsters with oxygenated water. When a smack was loaded with lobsters the lobsters would fill the well up to about the top of the partitions. When loaded like that our smack would hold about 16,000 pounds of lobsters. To look at a smack you couldn’t tell whether she was loaded. The load was displacing the free flowing sea water. Sometimes the lobsters would be rounded up with maybe a thousand or two more on top, above water level. You have to be careful that the lobsters don’t smother, so that means you have to keep a loaded smack moving almost all the time, for circulation in the well. The Arthur S. Wood- ward was the last well smack built. She was launched in 1949 in Beals. She was 60’ long, 16’ wide, and drew 6’ of water. See Illustra- tion.


This day we are bound for Grand Manan, an island in New Brunswick, Canada. We are to buy and load lobsters there and take them to Portland, Maine, for selling to a wholesale dealer. The idea is to make a profit on the trip. From a trip’s gross profit came deductions for crew wages, fuel, food, any wear and tear, other operating expenses, and (sometimes the big one) shrinkage. Shrinkage is not sell- ing as many pounds as you bought. This could be largely due to dead, weak, and broken lobsters your buyer won’t take. The captain of the smack has to be cautious to protect his load and to be careful when un- loading to keep shrinkage to a minimum. Going to Grand Manan runs in our family. Dad and his father, Capt. Lewis C. Woodward, and my other grandfather, Capt. Lad Simmons, all went to Grand Manan after lobsters. The January, 1928, Atlantic Fisherman had an item about Papa (Lad) going to Grand Manan for lobsters during the season there. Papa had the smack Aerolite at that time. My going to Grand Manan makes it three generations going down there to get lobsters. Inciden- tally, one of our Woodward ancestors came from Grand Manan, and, there’s a Woodward’s Cove there.


We get the luggage and grub up on deck and then haul the dory up over the rail on the starboard side and on deck. The plug in the drain hole in the bottom of the dory is pulled, to drain her out and to drain water that would get in her from spray or rain. We usually put the dory on the starboard side, maybe be- cause we seem to use the pilothouse door on the port side more than the starboard door. The dory will serve as a tender, and, as a lifeboat if we need one.


Ami and Stevie take the grub and bags down for’ard and get the fire going. Dad goes into the pilothouse and gets things ready in there, which includes taking the cover off the compass box and setting the clock in the pilothouse. The clock is a regular Big Ben type manually wound alarm clock that usu- ally resided in the bunk that was built across the after end of the pilothouse.


The pilothouse looks good inside, fin- ished with narrow matched lumber that is varnished. Mom had made blue curtains for the front of the bunk and the after windows. The steering wheel is varnished wood with spokes. The compass is centered on the shelf, directly for’ard of the wheel. The shift lever and throttle are brass, all nicely pol-


ished. The rolled up charts are in their racks between the beams of the ceiling. Generally, older smacks had pilothouses built right on the deck. Our smack’s pilothouse floor is raised up about a foot above the deck. There are four windows in the front of the pilot- house. In good weather it is nice to open the window you are looking through when steer- ing. In the pilothouse is a tall four-legged stool, standard equipment in lobster smacks. The stool helped during long watches at the wheel. There is a door by the end of the bunk in the pilothouse leading to the ladder, the inside passage, that goes down to the engine room.


I go down in the engine room to start the diesel, our propulsion engine. Going down into the engine room gives you that wonder- ful combined smell of diesel fuel, bilge water, paint that had been heated, gasoline for the lighting plant, and hard grease and lubricat- ing oil. The diesel is a 165 horsepower GM 6- 71 with a 3:1 reduction gear, and turns a 36” X 30” three blade propeller. The main electri- cal switch is turned on, and the engine cool- ing water intake valve is turned on. The oil level is good. With a squirt of ether into the air intake and hitting the starter button she comes to life with her characteristic knocking rumbling sound. Making sure everything was OK in the engine room and bilge, I go on deck. We take in the fenders, which are used tires. The fenders have been painted white so that the black won’t smudge the white lobster boats when they come along side to sell lobsters when we’re buying at home aboard the smack. The smack is painted white, also. The fenders are piled down on the stern, where the wire baskets and lines are kept. (You never go out with the fenders over the side) We put the lifelines up. The lifelines run from the fore rigging to the mainmast rigging, about chest high. Lifelines are standard pro- cedure when going out. They are to help prevent someone from falling over the rail and going overboard. Dad and I go on the bow and get ready to let the mooring go. We pass the buoy line out through the hawspipe where the chain is and bring the end up and tie on the mooring buoy. The buoy is an unpainted roughly hewn log about three feet long. The chain is unwound off the windlass and let go through the hawspipe with a re- sounding rattle that reverberates in Barney’s Cove. The buoy is tossed into the water. The smack is free. The diesel is idling with her pulsating rumble – ready to go. Dad goes aft to the pilothouse and pushes the manual shift lever to forward, and rolls the wheel down to turn to starboard to head down the Reach. Another old seagoing superstition is that whenever possible you make turns “with the sun”, clockwise. You also coil lines on deck in a clockwise direction.


We head down the Reach, jogging along at first, to let the diesel warm up. As we pass our home Dad gives three short blasts of the whistle to salute and say goodbye to Mom (Thelma). We knew she’d be praying for us as we made our way to the east’ard in the fog, and during the rest of the trip as well. The whistle will be sounded every few minutes in the fog. Dad pushes the throttle ahead to get the diesel up to 1750 RPM, which gives us 10 knots. Ten knots is our cruising speed, which is one mile every six minutes. Shortly we pass the Horse Rock, and going out through the eastern end of the Reach we pass the Bungy. Soon we’re heading for the bell off Mark Island. We make the bell buoy, and head generally easterly, passing The Jumper. We change course a little for Libby Island Light. We’ll listen for Libby’s fog signal when we get there.


Navigating in fog is a step by step pro- cess. You set your course (from the chart if


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