March 2012 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 7. VIEWS FROM THE PILOTHOUSE By Arthur S. Woodward
You have written about a number of views from various pilothouses, so do you have more stories related to views from pilot- houses? Yes, there are several more that I remember, so I’ll write some of them as VIEWS FROM THE PILOTHOUSE 2. Much of what I write has to do with lobster smacks. This is deliberate for a few reasons. Smacks were the key components in our family lob- ster business that Dad (Vernal) and Grampie Lewis founded c. 1930, and in the lobster business of my Grandfather Lad Simmons (Papa). I grew up aboard and around lobster smacks. I was, and am, fascinated by their models, pilothouses, rigs, engines, names, their great looks, their tremendous service in the commercial lobster industry, and that so little of their historicity had been recorded. Until I started writing about powered well smacks a few years ago there had been, to my knowledge, very little written about them. Yet, they were very historic vessels that were integral in marine lobster transportation, serving for something approaching six de- cades, essentially during the first half of the 20th century.
Very capable skippers and crews ran them up and down the Maine coast, to Anticosti and the Canadian Maritimes, to other New England ports, and as far as Montauk, New York. The smacks that I gen- erally write about were powered wet well smacks. There is some literature about sail well smacks, and some of them were in our family, also.
Some may be asking, “What is a lobster smack?” A smack is a vessel built to carry fish
of various species, either alive or dead. Smacks with wells originated many years ago, possibly in the North Sea region of Europe. In coastal New England and the Canadian Maritimes there were three kinds of smacks. A sardine carrier could be called a sardine smack years ago. A boat with a large hold that carried lobsters in crates in the hold was a dry smack. Our smacks and many others were wet well smacks, or simply well smacks, or smacks. From, say, into the 1800s until they went out of service they had en- gines. Prior to that the smacks were sail driven. Sail smacks with wells lasted up into the 1900s. Powered wet well smacks went out of service c. mid-1950s. Most well smacks had a watertight compartment midships, how- ever, the bottom of that compartment was bored full of holes to allow the free flow of sea water to keep lobsters
alive, in bulk. [The last two smacks we had were converted to sardine boats (the wells were taken out.)] When you looked into the well you looked into a few feet of salt water. If the smack had a load of lobsters you’d see that well with anywhere from 5,000 to 17,000 pounds of lobsters, depending on the size of the smack, down there moving around in the water, in bulk. Well smacks might have been from 45 feet to 65 (+) feet in length, from 10 to 16 feet wide, and drew 5 or 6 feet of water. Their average speed would be about 8 to 10 knots.
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The three masted schooner LUCY EVELYN hailed from Machias and was homeported there. She carried such cargoes as lumber, potatoes, and coal. Cummins and
Norton’s Company in West Jonesport (al- most directly across the Moosabec Reach from our home on Beals) included a hardware store, freight shed, lumber yard, wharf, and a coal storage building on the wharf. LUCY EVELYN came into the wharf to unload coal. She made her last trip there and typically needed a tow out into the Reach to get under- way as her sails were put up. She had no inboard auxiliary propulsion. Papa was asked to tow her out with his smack, AEROLITE. I was a small boy, but Papa and Dad took me with them to tow LUCY EVELYN out into the tide. My view from the pilothouse was of that big three master tied up at Cummins and Norton’s wharf, ready and waiting to be towed out for another trip. Papa and Dad got the hawser ready and got her hooked up to the AEROLITE. The big diesel in the smack was more than able to start LUCY away from the wharf and out into the Reach. When she was out in the Reach she was cast off and her sails took over. The heavy hawser was hauled aboard the smack and I learned to coil it clockwise on the deck. My last view of LUCY EVELYN was in Beach Haven, NJ. She’d been taken in there to end her days, with filled land around her, as a gift shop. (Dad towed LUCY EVELYN up and down the Machias River several times with his first smack FLORA BELLE.) *****
One night on the way home from a trip to take lobsters to the pound (a large impound- ment, such as a cove with a dam across it, for lobsters to free range) in Hancock Dad and I decided to go into Winter Harbor for the night. It may have been foggy or bad weather. In any case, we got underway for home early
the next morning. Dad was in the pilothouse steering and I was down for’ard getting breakfast. He had the view. We were going down the westerly side of Schoodic Point, headed out toward the end. Suddenly I heard a short blast from the whistle, which was a signal to come up on deck. I went right up and he said, “I wanted you to see the sunrise!” Looking over the port side across Schoodic Peninsular to the eastern sky there was a spectacular sunrise, a very memorable sun- rise. I’ve recalled that beautiful sight many times over the past 60 or so years. But, I don’t remember what we had for breakfast... Likely it was bacon , eggs, coffee, and “smack toast”. That sunrise superseded the break- fast that day.
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When I was teaching in Beals High School I made it a point to have my students learn things relevant to a life on and around the sea. Consequently we dealt with aspects of navigation and seamanship. As a hands- on field trip a number of my students came aboard our smack, ARTHUR S. WOOD- WARD. I took her off the mooring and we took an instructional cruise down the Reach. They experienced being in the pilothouse with the navigation equipment including compass, clock, and charts, using the com- pass, hearing the ship to shore radio, seeing the engine controls, looking at the barometer, looking down into the engine room, hearing the wonderful sound of the engine, and get- ting the views from the pilothouse. That brief trip in a smack was a first for some, if not all of them.
Continued on Page 22.
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