Page 20. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2012 A VIEW FROM THE PILOTHOUSE III Continued from Page 6.
racket early in the morning, I, obviously, can’t say. But the irony of it was that here we were at work out at the car loading the smack, apparently before he got up, but for his own reasons he called out to one and all his good morning wakeup call.
*****
I experienced another rooster’s crowing in a very different place. On one or two of our trips to Switzerland (this has nothing to do with lobsters or pilothouses), my wife and I were staying in a quaint small hotel in Interlaken, a nice bed and breakfast, named The Pilgerruhe. Early in the morning we’d hear a rooster crowing, and whether it was his intent or not, he succeeded in awakening us or getting our attention. We got to enjoy hearing him. I don’t recall that we heard him on any other trips there. *****
One afternoon we were buying lobsters out on the lobster car. The weather looked changeable and foreboding, and as we looked up across the Reach to the nor’west we could see a very heavy ominous dark cloud forming up there in over the land, and it appeared to be moving in our direction. We watched it in amazement as this heavy black squall came down the Reach, headed in our direction. We thought about what we’d do if it hit us. We figured about the only reason- able thing to do was hold on to the heavy vertical plank stakes on the sides of the car. The wind and rain squall came right down and across the Reach and hit where we were in kind of a broad sharply defined front. Lessie
Faulkingham’s lobster boat was on her moor- ing just off of our house, and a little way down the Reach from where we were. We saw that front of the squall hit Les’ boat and rip the pilothouse right off of her. Mom (Thelma) could have seen it from home had she been looking out of the window. We were OK on the car, and the little house didn’t blow off, but we got a pretty hard hit in a very short period of time.
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In the lobster business there is a lot of loss as well as some gain. As long as you can keep the balance on the plus side you can stay in business. One morning Dad and Uncle Shirt (Erroll), and I think maybe Curt Alley and Frank Burke were out on the car, and I was in on the wharf. Dad hollered to me and said for me to load the dory with crates and get out there quick. I threw some crates into the dory and quickly rowed out to the car. The lobsters that were in the car were dying and several hundred pounds were already dead. That summer in the late 1940s or 1950s the problem was the lobsters were afflicted with a conta- gious lethal disease called Red Tail. It’s my understanding that that is controllable now, but back then there was no treatment. We quickly went to work bailing the lobsters out of the car, crating the live ones and throwing the dead ones into the dory. We loaded the dory with the dead lobsters. At that time Obed (“Bub”) Peabody was captain of the smack GRACE M. CRIBBY. Bub took the dory in tow and towed her out into the Reach and towed her in a fast turn so as to roll her over and dump the dead lobsters. We were running our regular trips in our smack to
MISC. COMMERCIAL FISHING NEWS
Hancock, taking some 14,000-15,000 pounds per trip. We’d unload at the pound and start down Frenchman’s Bay, headed for home, and we’d have maybe 2,000-3,000 pounds of dead lobsters on deck, mostly victims of Red Tail. We’d shovel them overboard. We had no disposal guidelines. This was repeated trip after trip for several trips.
In the lobster business shrinkage is sell- ing fewer pounds of lobsters than you bought. Shrinkage is out of pocket loss. The Red Tail shrinkage was a very hard blow to Dad’s business.
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Petit Manan. The name connotes a small island out to sea, and Manan may be a Micmac Indian word. It was named by Samuel de Champlain who explored that coast in the early
1600s.There is something special to me about Petit Manan. In the Downeast ver- nacular it’s said as one word: “Tipmanan” or “Titmanan”. There are Petit Manan Point, Petit Manan Bar, and Petit Manan/Petit Manan Light in that locale. The gray granite 119 foot tall light tower and its accompanying house and buildings are on the low rocky island. The present tower was built in 1854. Petit Manan is 16 miles from Beals, south of west by a few points. On a clear night the white flashing light of Petit Manan can be seen from the Beals - Jonesport bridge. In some of my other narratives I’ve written about passing Petit Manan in fair weather and at night and in the fog. This vignette Is essentially about Petit Manan, because, as I said, it’s a special place to me. In good weather we would generally cross Petit Manan Bar, passing its two navigation buoys. In rough weather, fog, or bad weather we’d go out around Petit Manan, and then run in for Schoodic or Nash’s Island, depend- ing on whether we were heading to the west’ard or east’ard.
The schooner ARDELLE grounded out at Harold Burnham's boat shop in Essex, MA. Continued from Page 13.
and onboard the Schooner Ardelle, a 55-foot pinky schooner. Students enrolled in the Ocean Explorers Program split their day be- tween shore-based lessons at Maritime Gloucester focused on marine ecology and vessel-based applied scientific studies such as conducting plankton tows, using under- water vehicles equipped with cameras, and habitat sampling experiments. Maritime Gloucester educators, Ardelle captain Harold Burnham and his crew, and NOAA scientists and staff, will sail with students, sharing their expertise as students conduct sampling and observations.
NOAA Proposes Rule to Adjust Atlantic Swordfish Quotas and Other Measures; Seeks Public Comment through June 5 NOAA Fisheries proposes to implement a recommendation from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which maintains the U.S. North Atlantic swordfish base quota alloca- tion, limits the annual underharvest
carryover to 25 percent of the base quota, and requires an annual quota transfer to Mo- rocco. ICCAT’s recommendation also in- cludes an alternative swordfish minimum size of 25-inches cleithrum-caudal keel (CK). This proposed rule considers changes to swordfish minimum size requirements, in- cluding the 25-inch CK alternative swordfish minimum size and whether the bill of a sword- fish must be attached when measuring swordfish using the existing lower jaw fork length minimum size requirement. The rule also includes regulatory modifications and clarifications regarding swordfish fishery season closures and the North Atlantic swordfish quota reserve category. Finally, this proposed rule would adjust the North and South Atlantic swordfish quotas for the 2012 fishing year to account for 2011 underharvests and landings, as required by ICCAT. This proposed rule could affect com- mercial and recreational fishing for swordfish in the Atlantic Ocean, including the Carib- bean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Comments on the proposed rule are due June 5, 2012.
In our other smacks, FLORA BELLE and PAULINE MCLOON, it would take about two hours to go from home to Petit Manan. ARTHUR S. WOODWARD would do a little better so it would take about an hour and thirty five minutes from home to Petit Manan. The tall light tower stood out in grand silhou- ette against the sky on pretty days. Its bril- liant beacon was good to see in the night hours. However, in times of fog or snow you probably would not get a glimpse of the lighthouse or the island. You’d run your course and time from the buoy off Nash’s Island. Just before your time was up you’d slow down or stop and listen for the fog horn on Petit Manan and the bell buoy off the light. If you didn’t hear them you might run your course a couple of minutes more, then listen again. If you heard nothing you’d shut the engine off and listen. Generally you would hear the trumpet and the bell buoy. In a well smack you’d also hear the water sloshing around in the well as the smack rolled or jumped in the sea. Once you were assured of your bearings from Petit Manan you’d set your course for the whistling buoy off Schoodic Point, etc., and reverse the process going home. Be reminded that in those days up into the 1950s we had no electronic navi- gation aids.
It truly was, but it just seemed that Petit Manan was a special way point as we tra- versed that part of the Maine coast. *****
Our smacks were well maintained. They were in service year round, but their work would slack off in the spring for a little while until it was time for the “fall” season, which started in late June or early July, with fisher- men selling their carred lobsters and shed- ders striking. That brief hiatus in lobster transportation would give us time to paint the smack and do any maintenance necessary in preparation for a very busy fall season.
Even though we were careful, there was wear and tear, and winter was especially hard on smacks. Salt water ice grinding against them, salt water ice having to be pounded off, and snow having to be shoveled off the deck, plus the buying and transporting many thou- sands of pounds of lobsters could leave a smack looking rather tired and worn by the end of spring.
One spring, maybe in June, c. early 1950s, ARTHUR S. WOODWARD was seri- ously showing the harsh effects of winter and year round work. Dad decided to take her to Machias and haul her out at Lester Young’s repair yard and give her a complete restora- tion. It’s a pretty trip from Beals to Machias, going down the Reach and out by Mark Island, past Libby Island Light 16 miles from home, in by Cross Island, up past Avery’s Rock light, on up the bay where the first sea battle of the American Revolution was fought (with the Americans winning), past Machiasport, and on up the Machias River to Lester Young’s yard. The present Helen’s Restaurant is located just about where the ways and cradle were.
When ASW came into the yard she looked very tired. She was run into the cradle and secured and hauled up on the ways, right beside U.S. Route 1. The restoration work included burning off the white paint on her sides and sanding and painting the sides white, preparing all the rest of her for repaint- ing and then painting and dressing up a little. We raised her waterline, I put numbers show- ing her draft fore and aft and painted them black, and we painted her bottom with red copper paint. Her well was painted inside with red copper. Capt. Stevie Peabody (“Capt. Guns”) was helping us and he wanted to paint the well, some of which required reaching up to complete. When he finished and climbed out of the well he was one copper paint mess! In his good humor that didn’t bother him, and he got cleaned up. We painted the pilothouse white with lead color roofs on the pilothouse and engine room. The decks were painted lead color with white rails and waterways, the doghouses to the fo’c’sle and engine room were white, the masts were buff color with white mastheads and I painted a black band in the middle of the mainmast so the diesel exhaust wouldn’t blacken the buff. The masts were painted using a bos’un’s chair. The fores’l boom and gaff were buff with white ends. I did the lettering, painting the name on both sides of the bow and on the stern and the ring buoy on the pilothouse, plus her hail. When we finished the job ASW looked like brand new, and maybe more like a plea- sure craft than a hard working lobster smack. We launched (said “lanched”) her and took her home to go to work carrying lobsters *****
The MARGARET S. was a 33 footer built by “Cracker” Gower for a former Beals Is- lander who lived in Manset. She was used to take out sailing parties, so she had some yacht-like qualities, including cushions on the sidelockers in the cabin and having her Studebaker engine piped out through the stern. She was eight feet wide with a flush cabin and a pilothouse, and had a built down keel. When my cousin, Erroll George and I were boys our dads were in business to- gether, They decided to buy the boat, and nicknamed her “Scurse”. The name came from a reply from a fellow who answered “scurse’ (scarce) when asked about how lobstering was. Erroll George and I knew when they were bringing the boat home from Manset so at noon the day they were to arrive we went from school up to Uncle J. P.’s wharf to see her. The tide was down and they had her tied up at the end of the wharf. I remember looking down at her, and how pretty and “cute” she looked several feet below us.
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