July 2010 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 21. LOBSTERS: A 1950s Trip in a Lobster Smack
needed, using parallel rules) from the mark where you are to the next mark. You establish the distance from where you are to your next mark (from the chart if needed, using divid- ers), and since distance = speed X time, therefore time from where you are to the next mark equals miles divided by speed. In our case, if the distance is 20 miles and our speed is 10 knots the time required to cover that distance is 2 hours. You run your time be- tween marks almost up, factoring in wind and tide, then slow down and listen for the fog signal, bell buoy, or whistling buoy. If you don’t hear it you might jog on course for a minute or two, then listen again. If you think you’ve run up your distance and still don’t hear your mark’s sound, you shut the engine off and listen. When you shut the engine off in a smack you hear the water in the well slopping around as she rolls or jumps in the sea. If you are running to a silent mark, such as a can buoy, you hunt around until you find it, if possible. The captain of a smack remem- bers a lot of courses, distances, and times, and doesn’t always use his charts. We are using compass points to steer by, not de- grees. Dad had taught me to box a compass some time ago. Fog plays tricks on you. If you are on lookout you think you see the buoy you’re looking for, you think you see another boat, a ledge, etc., when there’s nothing there. We have no radar, no depth finder, no LORAN, and of course, no GPS, or any other electronic navigation devices. We do have a ship to shore radio. A typical radio call would be: “The Arthur Woodward, WC 6022, to the Grace Cribby, come in, ‘Bub’… [conversa-
tion, punctuated by ‘over’ or ‘go ahead’, then]… The Arthur Wood- ward, WC 6022 clear”. (“Bub” was Capt. Obed Peabody who had the smack Grace M. Cribby) We also have an aneroid barometer in the pilothouse that had come from one of our previous smacks, the Pauline McLoon. We make Libby Island and let her go to the east’ard for Southern Head (Southwest Head, Grand Manan). As we approach those high cliffs of Southern Head with the short lighthouse atop the cliffs the fog starts to scale up. We go around Southern Head and go into Seal Cove, where we tie up to a lobster car, put the dory overboard, and shut off the engine, some four hours after leaving home. Since we are in a Canadian port we have to enter and clear Canadian Customs. Dad gets a fellow to take us in his truck to North Head to the Customs office. We get the Customs busi- ness cared for and go back to Seal Cove.
The crew to load us arrives and we take in part of a load there in Seal Cove. We load the lobsters from a lobster car. A lobster car is a large wooden rectangular solid with spaces between planks on the sides and bottom for circulation. It is partitioned off into several pens, and has a deck with a door into each pen. A car floats very low in the water. Getting the lobsters from the car involves bailing the lobsters from the pens. Lobsters are bailed with dip nets. A dip net has a pole for a handle attached to a wrought iron rim that is straight across on its leading edge. From the rim hangs a hand-knitted mesh bag, with a tail rope hanging from the bottom. When helping the man bailing the helper will assist in lifting the full net and grab the tail rope and dump the lobsters out of the net. The lobsters are picked over and put into wire baskets or crates for weighing and dumping into the well. The heavy wire baskets hold 100 pounds, and have tail ropes. Our scales are cast iron and steel Fairbanks. We take in a few thousand pounds, then start the engine, cast off, and go up to Grand Harbour where we take in several thousand pounds. We return to Seal Cove to finish up our load, or “trip” as it is called. When we finish loading it is evening. Interspersed in the day had been dinner and supper. The engine is started. We’ve gotten the deck cleaned up and washed down. We have a deck hose that runs off of the engine, in addition to the draw bucket. The dory is back on deck, and we are getting ready to go out. Cap’n Guns is putting up the life line. I bend down to pick up a lobster claw from the deck just as he draws the
The Rockland lobster smack ROVER.
line tight. The line hits my glasses and knocks them off and they go over the side into the water. I stand by the rail and watch them sink. I said, “I’m going after them!” Dad said, “No, you’re not! That water’s deep and it’s coming on night! You’ll never find them.” I could see OK without them. As far as I know those plastic frame glasses are still at the bottom of Seal Cove.
The lines are cast off, and taken in and coiled up. In the well we have 16,000 pounds of live lobsters. We clear the lobster cars and head out of Seal Cove, Grand Manan, bound for Portland, Maine. Portland is approxi- mately 180 sea miles to the west’ard, or about
Photogragh-Penobscot Marine Museum
18 hours away. The diesel is turned up to 1750 RPM and the smack takes on her big long bow wave and wake, making a strong steady 10 knots with the engine screaming her delight- ful characteristic loud exhaust. When you go down in the engine room with that engine turning 1750 you cannot hear much of any- thing else. You can yell at someone standing on the other side of the engine and he may not even hear you. And again, the engine room smells some good with the engine running. The engine room light is turned on. We’ll look down into the engine room from the door in the pilothouse or through the engine room
Continued on Page 22.
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