Page 20. MAINE COASTAL NEWS October 2011 SEVENTIES MEMORIES - BOAT SHOWS By Lee Wilbur
After doing 10 and 12 hour days in a convention hall at the Miami Boat Show, and realizing that overall it made sense to use shows as another way to market Downeast boats, we decided to try an in-water show. Winter of 1977 we’d finished a Newman 36 hull to yacht standards for a great couple by the name of Budd and Judy Levinsen from Long Island, New York. Budd was an encour- aging type of person who enjoyed helping someone succeed as he had. After launching he and Judy’s new boat, and we had finally gotten over the trauma of a “Friday” engine from Detroit Diesel. (Someone had forgotten to torque an integral bolt which had fallen into a cylinder). Bud suggested we find an in- water fall show and use the new boat “Fins”. We quickly agreed and through the summer made plans to use the Norwalk Boat show held on the first of October as our initial Debut. Budd Invited me to stay overnight at their home on Three Mile Harbor and he and I would take “Fins” down Long Island Sound the next day to Norwalk.
Now one of the things about boatbuilding is that it is just assumed that boatbuilders not only know how to build a boat but that they also know all there is to know about navigating and running these boats they build. I’d only been in the busi-
ness four years. Been involved and around the water, having started and owned a boat rental business, but never traveled much further than Rockland, and that only once. I’d taken a navigation course in College which I attended through the coastal piloting sec- tion, then dropped when I realized that celes- tial navigation required mathematics, one of my worst subjects. So I could at least read a chart and go from “Buoy B to Nun 3”. How- ever, there was no way that I could destroy the myth. Had to go along as best I could and hope not to screw up making our way to Norwalk and getting the boat into our as- signed float.
Day before we were to take off, I flew into the Southhampton Airport on a small com- muter plane and Budd picked me up. On the way down the weather was looking a little gray, and having worked right up till the time I left Maine the thought we might be in for some weather never really crossed my mind. We had a two day window to get to the show with little choice, short of a hurricane, to get there on time. Bud mentioned that the weather report for next day was calling for wind and rain but no real definition of how much.
Next morning and out of bed with the dawn, rain, though not heavy, was coming down to grace the sparse, fog laden, daylight. Bud had checked the weather report again and allowed they’d reported windier condi- tions. However, from the safety and calm of the harbor we figured it couldn’t be that bad. I reasoned in my own mind that a “Sound” was a fairly protected body of water. Somes Sound is “Protected”. So we buttoned up our foul weather gear put on rain hats, climbed the ladder to the bridge and headed out. We’d no more than rounded the western point of Three Mile Harbor and struck our westerly course for Norwalk when we both I think realized this was not going to be a walk in the park. This was my first and last time in
a “Long Island blow”. With a combination of tide, wind, currents, and the relatively narrow distance between Long Island and the Con- necticut shore the Sound can become a regu- lar “Maelstrom” in anything much over 30 knots. I never did know how much wind we had that day. Didn’t want to. Can only as- sume it was in the 40’s somewhere. Thank- fully we were in a Maine boat that could take all we were given. Even so, it was all we could do to hold on to the bridge seats. Water would literally come up in towers and we’d be driving around them. We were soaked not to mention cold as hell. I’ll never forget Budd looking over at me with a half grin and saying, “Have you noticed we’re the only ones out here today?”
We pulled into Cove Marina at Norwalk where the show was being set up around 3PM. Needless to say we were both quite relieved to tie the lines and try to walk a straight line after a dizzy day of swinging in wave generated “360’s”. Budd’s ride back to New York was waiting, so as soon as he dried off a bit he left me to take the boat over to our slip where I’d then have to back it in. When Heidi had made the show reserva- tions, show people told her there were only a few spots left, one being side to on a float just at the bottom of “A Dock” ramp, number 4. A number which will accompany me to my final rest. Had to zig and zag to get there, then had to back it in with current flowing. Float on one side and sharp blasted riprap rocks about 15 feet on the other. I asked for help and show office said they’d have someone there to catch me. That was scant relief. I scoped out the way in and around, got a feel for the current, and luckily there I’d be in the lee of the wind. In I started. Heart a-poundin’. At the controls of an expensive yacht, worried sick I might scratch it or embarrass myself at the same time in front of a hundred experi- enced delivery captains. Pictures of me and “Fins” caught crossways between the float
and shore, jammed into the rocks, flew through my mind as I idled down the alleys and swung the bow around. There was one more consideration. We always set up the transmissions to swing a left hand propeller. When docking the skipper could throw the engine in reverse and with the steering wheel on the starboard or right side the boat’s stern would swing to starboard and said skipper could calmly step into the cockpit throw a line over the cleats and look like an old seadog. In this case the float would be on the port side which would mean the stern would be trying to swing off the float, and I’m on the flybridge and would have to get down the ladder, and tie a line before “Fins” had other plans. No help in sight. No turning back. Cur- rent was running out. That was a help. I backed and filled, working the steering for all I was worth. Bow wanted to feel the rocks. I argued no. Just as I’m ready to scale off the bridge a voice comes off the ramp, “Need a hand?”. Calm as I could, keeping a catch from my voice, I replied, “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind catching my line.”
As the gentleman was helping me tie up, he complimented me, saying, “Good thing you have twin engines.”
I allowed it would have been, however, “Fins” was a single screw. Needless to say I more than appreciated his help and passed him a free ticket to the show just as a show staffer finally arrived.
The show worked out great. We sold a boat or two. Met some great people who were to become customers in later years, found some dynamite restaurants, and got to know the ropes for future shows. We kept A-4 for as long as we continued at the Norwalk Show. Had some close calls in docking over the years, but never put a scratch on any. This show was the first of many until my hair had turned a shade of grey that I was asked if my father was there, not realizing that we had started Lee S. Wilbur and Co. from scratch.
HELP - SATURN'S Engine Room Next Big Project!
This is SATURN'S main engine, which is a Cleveland 16-278A.
SATURN is a 117-foot railroad tug built as the BERN for the Reading Railroad in 1907. She is one of the last railroad tugs in existence and is being saved for future generations to enjoy. For further information : (207) 223-8846 or to join the Friends of SATURN, send a check for $25 or more to P.O. Box 710, Winterport, ME 04496.
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