Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2012 A VIEW FROM THE PILOTHOUSE III By Arthur S. Woodward


The Maine Coast and your many other adventures have given you many stories. Do you have still more stories, in addition to your VIEWS FROM THE PILOTHOUSE and VIEWS FROM THE PILOTHOUSE 2? Some- one who has read my other two VIEWS nar- ratives might well ask me that question. The answer is yes. When you grow up on Beals Island, and travel to significant parts of that splendid coast, and travel to neighboring places plus those far away, you are bound to have lots of stories. This is particularly the case if your family business is primarily lob- ster buying, wholesaling, and transporting lobsters, and, in addition, if your family busi- ness also includes fishing for and transport- ing other kinds of fish, and related marine work.


My earlier background includes experi- ence in numerous boats of various sizes from small rowboats and dories to lobster boat types to lobster smacks and sardine carriers, marine construction, lobster trucks, and working with men from young to old. As we move through this narrative, VIEWS FROM THE PILOTHOUSE 3, we’ll venture along the Coast of Maine with a brief side trip to Europe. Some of my new readers may not have had the privilege of becoming familiar with wet well lobster smacks or lobster cars, so I’ll provide some brief descriptions for folks who haven’t had the opportunity of growing up and working in the lobster business and other related experiences on the coast of the Maine State.


A powered wet well lobster smack was a decked over vessel with watertight bulk- heads midships (generally) and a hatch in the deck. The bottom between the bulkheads was bored full of holes to allow free circula- tion of sea water, hence allowing the carrying


of live lobsters in bulk in the well. Smacks had pilothouses and a ketch rig typically with two masts. Smacks varied in size from approxi- mately 45 feet to 70 feet in length, 10 to 16 feet wide, and a draft of 5 or 6 feet. Powered well smacks served in providing vital commercial transportation of lobsters from later in the 1800s to the mid 1950s. Smacks saw service along the northeastern coast of the US and maritime Canada. Their carrying capacity ranged from some 5,000 to 17,000 pounds of lobsters. The last one built was the ARTHUR S. WOODWARD, built in Beals and launched in 1949. She was 60 x 16 x 6 feet, and was powered by a GM 6-71 diesel. A lobster car is a floating rectangular wooden box, built of heavy lumber, up to maybe 30-35 feet long and 15 or more feet wide and about 4 feet deep. The sides and bottom have spaces between the planks to allow the salt water to circulate to keep the stored lobsters alive. The interior of a commercial size car is subdivided into pens or partings, maybe four or five on a side, each having a heavy plank door in the solidly planked deck. Many cars had heavy plank stakes on the sides to serve as fenders for boats coming alongside. A car probably had auxiliary buoyancy to keep the deck slightly more above water. Empty wooden barrels lashed on the ends or in later years huge blocks of styrofoam in some pens provided added buoyancy.


After Barney’s Cove, Beals, was dredged our car was moored at the end of our wharf. It would have a small house that served as the office, and a telephone. We also ran the hoses from the gasoline pumps on the end of the wharf down to the car to enable the fishermen to fuel up while they sold their lobsters. We’d often go right aboard the boats and lift out their lobster tubs and pails


The lobster smack ARTHUR S. WOODWARD hauled up on the hard.


and carry them to the scales, then pass their empty containers back to them, along with their cash. We’d even plug some of their lobsters. (Lobster plugs were small wedge shaped pieces of white pine about 1¼ – 1½ inches long with pointed ends. The pointed end would be inserted in the membrane at the base of the lower “jaw” of the large crusher claw and sometimes in the pincher claw also. Lobsters were not plugged to prevent them from biting people, they were plugged to keep them from biting each other.) All the fisher- men had to do was cast off from the car and go about two boat lengths into the wharf and get as much bait as they wanted lowered right down aboard the boat. They could get oil, salt, gloves, oil skins, boots, fishing supplies, etc., right there at the wharf. Several men would tie up their skiffs there. Our buying station was very convenient for our 70 or 80 fishermen.


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One of the prettiest times of day on the ocean is at sunset. Sometimes when we’d be coming home from a trip to Hancock after delivering a load of lobsters on a summer day that had been picture perfect we’d be heading easterly, maybe somewhere in that 16 mile stretch between Schoodic Point and Nash’s Island, we could look back toward the nor’west and watch the sun near the horizon in over the land. The sky and water surface would be changing appearance. That in and of itself was a terrific sight. Then, add to that


beauty seeing the lighthouses light up for the night. There’d be Petit Manan Light, Nash’s Island Light, and maybe we could see Pond Island Light. Then, too, when the astronomy was right, we’d see the full moon or near full moon in the southeast sky. To use a good Downeast expression, “Some pretty!” God’s handiwork augmented by man’s ingenuity... *****


For many years, up into the 1950’s, Dad (Vernal) moored his lobster car out in the Moosabec Reach far enough off the shore so that it was in good tidal flow to keep the stored lobsters healthy. The car was moored directly off from Grammie Rose’s house. On days when we’d be loading the smack from the car for a delivery to the pound in Hancock, or some other place to the west’ard, we’d fre- quently start before daylight. We’d go get the smack off the mooring and go in alongside the car and tie up. The rest of the loading crew would be out on the car. As we’d be loading, around daylight, we’d hear this very loud sound coming from in on the shore. It would repeat every few seconds. Loud sound, si- lence, loud sound, silence, etc., for some time... See, Grammie had a hen pen near her barn and a few steps from her house. You guessed it! Her rooster would be crowing. Now whether he thought we weren’t fully awake and needed his alarm, or whether he was awakening the hens, or just making a


Continued on Page 20.


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