June 2014 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 21. '70S MEMORIES: TOM MORRIS AND MORRIS YACHTS By Lee S. Wilbur


“You know,” Betty said, “When my husband and I came down from Aroostook County to buy an “Annie” sailboat from Tom, we got to know he and Tina quite well. They were wonderful people and great hosts. And, Peter and I felt that Tom was doing something he really enjoyed.” (Elizabeth and Peter Johnston) Speaking with Tom and Tina’s son


Cuyler, he seconds Betty’s quote, “This was the place and vocation my dad was defi nitely happiest in. Every job he tried in Philadelphia had something to do with the ocean, from marine insurance, to a shipping company. He was in a cage and needed to get out. That’s when they fi nally moved to Southwest Harbor.” By 1972, Tom had found a job working for Jarvis Newman when Jarvis had started laying up the fi berglass Friendship sloops. The Morris’s moved temporarily into the 1880s family cottage in Northeast Harbor until late fall when they found a house on the High Road in Southwest. “We didn’t move until late November, and I still re- member the smoke from the fi replaces and how cold we were in the old cottage,” Cuy- ler recalls. Within a few months of employment,


Tom had made an agreement with Jarvis to fi nish off some of the two Friendship mod- els, the Pemaquid and the Dictator. He’d found a nearby location on the High Road to set up shop and was soon turning out a fi nished product with the help of his fi rst employee, Preston Kelley.


This, as I’ve come to realize and re- peated many times was the beginning of “The Golden Age of Boatbuilding on Mount Desert Island” and especially South- west Harbor. At one time we counted fi f-


teen boatbuilders, wood and fi berglass, between Bass Harbor Head and Trenton Bridge. It was a time when buyers would come to the builders, who hardly needed to advertise. For our own operation, we put an ad in “Yachting” magazine smaller than a business card, about an inch and a half square and at times had more business than easily handled. And, one of the great fun things about this period, many of us were of the same general age, had children, we partied together, skied together, told lies and commiserated at cocktail parties, and worried about the local schools. Having outgrown the High Road shop,


Tom and Tina in 1974-75 bought a substan- tial piece of the Harvard Beal property at the intersection of High Road and Clark’s Point Rd. where they built a house for the family and a shop to build more and bigger boats. This yard and shop, added to several times, became “Morris Yachts” base of op- erations until the year 2000.


By this time, 1974, one of the very talented craftsmen and a consummate prac- tical joker from town, Al Michaud who’d worked many years for The Hinckley Com- pany came to work for Tom. “I remem- ber Al as “the candy man”,” says Cuyler, “Come Friday night, quitting time, he and Dad would lean up on the back of Al’s pick- up for a taste of brandy, and for any of us kids that would come by he’d have candy to pass out. Bags of Mars bars, M&Ms, Her- sheys. Anything we wanted.”


Also in 1974-75, another milestone


in Tom’s career occurred which put a new acquaintance, Chuck Paine, and Morris Yachts solidly on the boatbuilding scene. Chuck had worked for designer Dick Car- ter until he’d made enough money to de- sign and start building a small boat on his


D.E.L.A. - From the Director Continued from Page 10.


event will be held on July 20th


They claim that the areas where there are dump sites re-furbish the marine bottom in time. We don’t have all of the answers, of course, but it is a start to trying to fi nd a better solution to our problems with this situation. Put your thinking caps on and write your letters to the Army Corps of Engineers once again. Only this time, let them know your suggestions for a better place to use this dredge material. The address once again is: Colonel Charles P. Samaris, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers – 696 Virginia Road – Concord, MA 01742-2751 Attn: Engineering and Planning Division (Mrs. Barbara Blumeris) E-mail: Cenae-ep@ usace.army.mil Please help us to fi nd a better solution!


The Lobster Boat Races are about to begin along with the summer festivals. The full schedule for the boat races is posted in the Maine Coastal News. This year, the Fishermen’s Family Fun Day which is hosted by the Island Fishermen’s Wives Association is celebrating its 25th


year! This , 2014 on the


from 9 – 4 at the Belfast Waterfront. If you would like to participate in this event, please contact us and we will give you the information. We try to attend as many events as possible and include Associate members, family and friends to display along with us. We have made some great friendships over the past few years and gained new members, too.


Please don’t forget, we are always there to help and represent our membership and the industry. If you haven’t joined or need to re-new your membership, please send it along to our address: D.E.L.A. P. O. Box 88 Belfast, ME 04915. We also have a membership letter and form on our website: downeastlobstermen.org. Love to have you “On Board!” Our next meeting is Thursday, July 10th


. We will post our location on the


Facebook site and website. See ya around, Sheila


MISC. COMMERCIAL FISHING NEWS Continued from Page 20.


sels may transit through Area 1B with more than 2,000 pounds of herring on board, pro- vided the vessel did not catch those herring in Area 1B and stows all fi shing gear aboard, making it unavailable for immediate use. States are reminded that in accordance


with Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring, once a closure has been announced by the Regional Administrator of NMFS, states


Stonington Fish Pier. Belfast Harborfest is another big event that includes Maine boat builders and the Boat Building Challenge. This event is scheduled for Saturday August 16th


Tom Morris honouring Al Michaud by naming a building at the yard for him.


own. He aimed to follow in the footsteps of designer Doug Peterson who designed and built a successful “one ton” class sailboat, then won the world class championship with it and gone on to a very successful and lifelong career in boat design. Through a mutual friend who knew Tom and knew that though he enjoyed fi nishing the Friend-


ships, Tom wanted to have his own models, introduced him to Chuck.


semi-completed hull for marketing I would ask only for royalties as each boat was completed.” Within weeks, Tom had talked with


Eric White and Wes Burgess, owners of North End Marine and Fiberglass about a


Continued on Page “So, I made a cold call Traditional Boat, LLC


to Tom. I was shy. Told him what our mutual friend had said and that I was building a boat and had a half mod- el he might be interested in looking at. Tom agreed to see me and we settled on a time. In the interim, I had pretty much completed the hull which was upside down, so I worked like crazy to paint the bottom, topsides and sheer stripe to get pictures. I already had a well fi nished half mod- el with varnished rub-rails so I put all this together and drove to Southwest. We both realized within an hour that we could do business together and with a handshake agreed that be- cause the design was com- pleted and he could use the


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must prohibit the landing of herring from a closed area and prohibit directed fi shing for Atlantic herring in state waters of a closed area. During a closure, vessels participating in other fi sheries may retain and land an in- cidental catch of herring from a closed area that does not exceed 2,000 pounds per trip. For more information, please contact


Melissa Yuen, Atlantic Herring Fish- ery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0740.


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