March 2011 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. "Gene" Walls, Master Boat Craftsman By Lee S. Wilbur


To his boss, “Bobby” Rich”, when Bobby wanted to get away for a vacation with a difficult job hanging before he could leave, Gene said “I can do anything, take off”. “That was a mistake”, G. “Gene” Walls tells, “We were finishing up a lobster boat and the steel pipe for the exhaust had to be fit to the manifold and then go up through the roof like they used to do. I’d never done anything like that before, wood had always been my craft, but I thought I could figure it out. After that they started giving me the complicated jobs. About a month later, Bobby came down over the hill carrying a 1949 Oldsmobile “Woodie” right front door. Car had been hit in an accident. Owner wanted it replaced. Would have taken six months to get a new one from Detroit. Wood was maple if I remember. Took me a week to figure out all the notches and angles, how to cut them and then how to remove the old piece from the plywood without ruining the plywood. That would have been a disaster. Unfortunately, these “jobs” were often in difficult places and they weren’t much fun.” Born in 1925 and brought up in West Tremont on Mount Desert Island, Gene was drafted into the Navy in 1942 at age 17. In 1945, with World War II and all of its horrors finally over, Gene’s ship came back to Nor- folk, VA, to be put in mothballs. He was one point shy from mustering out. Command told him to go home on leave. Didn’t need him there, he’d have to muster out in Boston at the end of the month. “Why not here?” he asked. “Rules and Regulations” was the reply. I asked Gene how he got home. “Hitch- hiked. We used to hitchhike everywhere. Couldn’t afford a car. Hitchhiked back to Boston when I was discharged, then the same to get back home. Wearing a uniform, anyone would pick you up. Now when I pass some- one with their thumb out I feel a little guilty driving by, but it’s not the same. Never know what might happen.”


“When I first got back on leave, I sort of drifted around, seeing old friends, and stopped down to Bobby Rich’s yard. I was standing on the staging talking to a few of the crew. Bobby came along and said, “What are you doin?” I told him and added that I was still in the service.


“You know how to paint?”


“I’d always worked growing up. Paint- ing, little carpentering, anything to make a dollar. Course there was always painting to do on the ship. One color. Gray. Money was scarce back then. So when Bobby said leave was no big deal to him, I really had no plans so I said I’d give it a try. I started at Hull#13 and was there for 21 years.”


Gradually, over the course of the next few years Gene settled into woodworking,


although he still continued to do a lot of the varnishing.


“Ronald, Bobby’s brother was there at the time. I learned a lot from Ronald. He could turn out the work of two to three men. Big, strong, back then, 200-225 pounds. Never stopped. Then that sugar diabetes got to him and he began to lose weight. Couldn’t do quite as much, began to tire. But he could still turn out more than the rest of us. I think it was around age 35 that he went out on his own and built a shop over on the Herrick road, in Southwest Harbor.”


“We had a pretty good crew overall. There was Ronald, Clayton Holt, Pearl Dow, sometimes Halsey Pettegrow would work winters. Occasionally we’d have as many as 10 men. I didn’t like to have too many around. Can’t get as much accomplished.” Gene tells the story of a Mr. William Ball who had come to Bobby in the late 40s to have a boat built. “There was plenty of work right after the war. Everybody wanted a boat built. Pleasure boats, lobster boats, draggers, sein- ers. Everything. Lots of demand. Mr. Ball wanted a “picnic” boat built. Said he didn’t know what he would’ve done if Bobby hadn’t built this “picnic” boat for him.” They later found out that Mr. Ball already had four others.


Later, Roger, Bobby’s other brother, Roger, came to work there after having had a shop in Southwest Harbor. Gene tells of working nights with Roger who was building a 32 footer for himself.


“Roger was quite different than Ronald. More easy going. But he knew how to do a lot of stuff. Bobby got an order one year for a 36 foot powerboat that was going to Venezuela. It was planked with Philippine mahogany. Wood had a funny grain, something you don’t usually see with Philippine. Inside was all varnished native cedar with lots of teak spread around. Mahogany bent for the most part fairly well. Roger was getting the planks out. Now it’s one thing to spile the planks, another to put ‘em on, but getting them out and keeping ahead of everyone, having the plank ready, is another. Really got to know what you’re doing and be fast. And, Roger was good at that.”


“Anyway, Clayton and I were planking and some of the planks weren’t coming out just right. Seams were just a bit off and we’d have to do some planning. I hate planning. I was young and cocky and made another mistake, saying “I think I can do a better job”. Nothing was said, we went on planking. Fin- ished her up. I had a lot of varnishing to do in the end. Came time to do the next boat, a 57 footer. Roger points to the bench and says, “Here’s the tools.” Boat came out okay. So I got to do the next one, a 36 footer and I used exactly 700 feet of cedar. Bobby was quite


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pleased and there was no waste. So then I had the job. Really enjoyed that aspect of build- ing. Always had to be thinking ahead. Some- thing to challenge your brain.”


I asked Gene what were some of the changes he’d seen in wood boat building over his 26 years in the trade.


“When I went to work, there were almost no watertight platforms. And, very few for- ward cabins in the workboats, mostly sprayhoods. Fresh water would get into the hull, get down in the garboard planks and the hull would rot out a lot faster. With the watertight platforms, trunk cabins, and standing shelters, fresh water would run off and the life of a vessel was much longer. And, I guess we began using better metal. Hard to get stainless and aluminum when I first started. Most all brass and galvanized. Though some of the galvanized iron held up quite well.”


By 1967, after 21 years with Bobby, from Hull 13 through Hull 127, Gene decided it was time to strike out on his own. He owned a small house in Manset with a separate 24 x 28 foot garage in the back where he figured he could “get out” a boat if it wasn’t too big. “I wanted to make more money”, Gene said. “So the first thing I did was double my pay.”


“Don Chambers from Hall Quarry came to me. Said he wanted me to build him a 26 foot boat and commenced to lay out everything he wanted in it. I told him it wasn’t big enough, but he was persistent. Time I got done, I added another foot and never said anything. Don’t think he ever noticed it”


“First few years I would job around in the summer and get a boat to build in the winter. Didn’t care to be cooped up in a dusty boat


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shop when the weather was good outside. Found that worked out quite well and later after I got done boatbuilding I went to house building full time.” Gene had a great reputa- tion on Mount Desert Island and was well known for the quality of his work, a point I can attest to from several projects he did for me, including my boat shop.


“Later I built 20 feet onto the garage. Still kind of hard to build a very wide beamed boat, but we did some 36s in there. I had a few good people helping, Hugh Stanley and Bill Babcock. In the next few years I built boats for Girlan Robbins, and Mike Tate, to name a few and then if you remember I was building a 33 footer for Warren Fernald while you were building a 36 footer in your old building next door for his son Danny”.


When I asked Gene what finally prompted him to leave boatbuilding and go into house construction I got a story not unlike those of a number of the old wooden builders. “It was getting harder to get good wood and to find someone who either knew or was willing to learn wood building skills. My son Alan, who is one helluva good crafts- man and was working for me at the time decided he wanted to go fishing. Something I’ve tried and tried to talk him out of. Then, (which always brings me a chuckle) fiber- glass was coming in and I didn’t think much of working with that. Hated the smell and the dust.”


Gene, now “somewhat retired” at age 86 and living in Manset with wife, Peggy, is still active. For the “fun of it” he can be tempted to take on a small project as long as there’s a challenge involved. In his shop, son Alan has taken on repairing the boat Gene started with in his garage. Gene’s helping out.


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