Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS December 2012 Coastal Stories from Downeast By Arthur S. Woodward RESCUE Hey, Cap, Iʼll back in and


weʼll throw our stern line to you so you can make ʻer fast and weʼll tow you out. Thatʼs probably about what Dad said as his voice carried over the rough seas and through the strong wind to the lobster fi sherman strand- ed in his boat that was about to be blown in and washed ashore on the rocks of Petit Manan Point. When the lobster fi sherman got the line secured, she was in the heavy surf and precariously close to the rocks on the point. Dad went ahead on the smackʼs engine and headed his lobster smack, Flora Belle, into the seas and took a strain on the hawser to the boat. The boatʼs engine broke down earlier and with the heavy wind and high seas the fi sherman had no way to con- trol his boat.


The smack and her tow moved well clear of the rocks, just in time.


Dad was passing Petit Manan Point on a trip delivering lobsters. Weather had to be very bad to stop him from going. They spotted a lobster boat about to be washed ashore on the point, so there was only one thing to do: help him. Given the weather and sea conditions and the rocks just beyond the lobster boat it is highly probable that the boat would have been a total loss. I donʼt know if the fi sherman could swim, but maybe he could not.


Many lobstermen didnʼt know how to


swim. If youʼre wearing oil clothes and long legged rubber boots and fi nd yourself in the ocean, even if you know how to swim, youʼre not likely to be very successful at it. As Dad gradually towed the lobster boat


to safety the fi sherman was very grateful for the expert seamanship and courage Dad had exhibited in taking him in tow and saving his


boat and likely his life. * * * * *


OVERVIEW This is a series of an- ecdotes relating actual events along the coasts of New England and the Canadian Maritimes.


I was born and raised on Beals Island. My parents were Vernal Woodward (Capt. V. O.) and Thelma (Simmons) Woodward. My grandfathers were Capt. Lewis (Grampie) Woodward and Capt. L. H. (Lad) (Papa) Simmons, both of whom ran lobster smacks. In the narratives when I use the expres- sion “lobster smack” or “smack” Iʼll be re- ferring to wet well powered lobster smacks that played a very signifi cant role in trans- porting lobsters from, say, the latter 1800s to the latter 1950s. Typically the smacks had a watertight compartment midships with the bottom of that compartment bored full of holes, thereby providing a well in which to transport live lobsters in bulk. There were “dry boats” that carried lobsters in crates in their dry holds, and these were generally re- ferred to as dry smacks. We didnʼt have a dry smack and I donʼt write much about them. I donʼt write much about sail powered well smacks, either, even though my grandfathers had them before my time.


My priorities in much of the writing that I do is to preserve the memory and historicity of the extensive service these valiant lobster smacks and crews carried out and to provide reference material about powered wet well lobster smacks.


I further prioritize interesting occur- rences that I know about along the coast. In this series of anecdotes Iʼll be relating several stories on various topics that come from my memory, a number of which were told to me as I was growing up or I remember


knowing about them when they happened. Much of my writing is of personal experi- ence, but I did not experience some of these vignettes.


Generally these stories took place be- tween the 1930s and 1960s. * * * * *


HURRICANE COMING Early one morning Dad, Uncle Shirt (Dadʼs brother, Erroll), and I went down to their weir at Molly Cove in the Eastern Bay, Great Wass Island. We had a little rowboat with a 3 horsepower air cooled Clinton outboard that powered our craft. When sheʼd start and run she moved us along respectably. When she wouldnʼt start, which was all too often, it was give ʻer a pull, tinker, give ʻer a pull, tinker, give ʻer a pull, pull, pull, and fi nally let ʻer hang on the stern and just keep row- ing. On this particular day we knew there was a hurricane coming and the wind kept breezing up to the eastʼard. We didnʼt linger long at the weir, and headed northerly up the Bay for home. We got into Moosabec Reach and headed westerly up the Reach. Remembering back those sixty or some years it seems that the Clinton was running as we made our way up the Reach, with the increasing easterly wind dead astern. When I taught meteorology in physics I taught my students the Law of Buys-Ballot - Woodward preferred version. Simply, in my preferred version, if you face the wind of a low pressure system in the northern hemisphere and extend your right arm to the side your hand will be pointing at the center of the low. There is a lot more to learn about it, but not here. In the case of a hurricane youʼll be pointing at the eye. When the wind just keeps breezing up from the same direction you know the eye of the hurricane is coming right at you. And so it was. In the evening when the hurricane winds were at


their worst we were at a cove checking some of our boats. Suddenly, the wind dropped out and we were in clear skies, with the stars out - for a few minutes. Just as quickly, with no preliminary warning, the storm struck from the opposite direction with wind at hurricane force. The high winds subsided gradually as the hurricane moved away from us. Weʼd taken a classic direct hit of the eye of the hurricane.


* * * * *


SALVAGE The Rio Tambo was a small freighter on her way to the westʼard with a load of laths. Those four foot strips, likely spruce, would be bundled and stacked in her hold and likely on deck also. I believe she had come across the Bay of Fundy from Nova Scotia and was outside (south) of very rocky coastline of islands off Beals Island, near Moose Peak Light.


For whatever reason she ran ashore and wrecked on those rocks. The bundles of laths went adrift there, so men from the area went down in their boats to salvage as many laths as they could. Spruce laths were widely used in building the lobster traps of those days, c.1930s.


Grampie Lewis and Dad took the Flora


Belle and went to the wreck site to pick up laths. They got a lot of bundles and put them in the well, and then took on a deck load. The deck load was so high the smack was top heavy and Grampie was nervous about that. Dad said Grampie looked at him and said, “Someday youʼre going to get in a mess.” They managed to get underway and take their load to the westʼard without incident. * * * * *


BEST LAID PLANS Papa (Lad) bought the smack H. A. Johnson and had her well taken out at the shipyard in Roque Bluffs to make her a dry boat that could


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