Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS September 2014 Boatbuilder Clifford Alley Jr. Passes Over Bar
BEALS – Clifford R. Alley Jr., 83, died Aug. 2, 2014 at a Bangor hospital.
Alley was born up near the Mill Pond on upper Beals Island to Clifford Sr. and Clara (Beal) Peabody on 1 August 1931. He never made it to high school. Instead he learned to cut wood, worked for the town for a time and went lobstering and clamming. He did what needed to be done to get by just like everyone else on the island. For lobstering he used a 16-foot outboard boat that was over 25 years old when he bought it. He then sold that to a fi sherman from the island and built himself a boat at the age of 16. He owned her about two weeks and sold her and built himself another one. He used her for a while and then he sold that one and Lester Beal built him another. Throughout his life Alley never fi shed from an inboard lobsterboat. Just after World War II Riley and Adrian Beal returned to Beals Island from building boats at Stonington. Alley went to work with them and when they moved their shop to Jonesport he went with them.
He also worked for Harold Gower on Beals Island. He said, ‘Harold was a good teacher, but he was a fussy teacher too. He would tell you what to do and he would stand there and see that you were doing it right. If you didn’t he would show you what to do. He was the fussiest man that I ever worked for in my life. Riley Beal taught us how to draft and stuff like that but Harold wouldn’t do that because he didn’t know how. Riley was the only man that showed me how to draft a boat.”
Alley worked with Gower about a year and a half before he left and began repairing houses. He and Richard Alley later built a shop together and for about twenty years they built boats. Every one of the boats they built was wooden. When they went to make their model a friend had cut down a big pine tree and they went in the woods and sawed a piece off of it and made a half model. The two started right out building a 30-footer and then they built a 28-foot cruiser for a minister on Swan’s Island. After that they never built anything smaller than 30 feet. Their boats went all over the coast of Maine
• Expert Repair • Fuel Polishing • Haulout/Storage
• Brokerage/Rental • DIY Space
and some as far as Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They were also not limited to lobster boats, they turned out a sportfi sherman and a couple of pleasure boats. Most times they put out fi ve boats a year. After twenty years Richard left and began building boats at his house on the island in the late 1970s. Clifford continued on building wooden boats for a time and he would turn out two or so a year. He then switched to fi nishing off fi berglass hulls. For the last two or three of these his youngest son, Raymond, helped. One of the fi berglass hulls, a Young Brothers 40, was DORIS MARGARET for John Faulkingham of Beals Island. He said that they built her in fi ve weeks. Another many of the islanders remem- ber is MOXIE, done on a Young Brothers hull. When she was going out the shop a gust of wind caught her stern and she came off the ways tipping part way over. Fortunately she fetched up on her propeller and her bow. The Young Brothers came down and looked the hull over and said she had no damage. The only damage was to her propeller, which had bent blades. Alley also put in a new stainless steel shaft. He then had a crane brought in and the boat was picked up and moved onto the beach.
The last boat out of his shop came two years ago when he built a 25-footer with and for his son Raymond. She is the only all fi berglass boat he has ever built from keel up.
Over the years he built over 100 wooden boats, many with Richard Alley, and he fi n- ished off about 20 fi berglass hulls. He said, ‘I knew that was going to kill me so I got out.’ In the late 1980s he left his boat shop and began working on houses.
Alley would like to build at least one more boat. He said that he has all his moulds and would love to do one about 30 feet in length. He said, ‘I would like to build one more at least. Build it the way I would like to build it. There are a lot of things I would do different.
Many builders of the area left boatbuild- ing and began building play boats, such as
• Showers/Laundry
CHASE, LEAVITT & CO. The Chart Room
Flags · Books · Chart Kit · Paper Charts ·Navigation Tools Life Service Station
Abandon Ship · Floatation Gear ·Distress Signals · Overboard Rescue Inlatable Boats
Sales: Achilles, Caribe, & Highield Large Supply of Spare Parts Repair Professionals
144 Fore St., Portland (207) 772-6383 218 Bucksport Rd., Ellsworth (207) 667-9390
www.chaseleavitt.com
Superb Service Best Rates
Clifford fi nished off this 40-foot Young Brothers hull for John Faulkingham, who named her for his wife, Doris Margaret.
Alvin Beal. Alley said he started one and later on he would build a number of them. For those familiar with the boats turned
out by Clifford Alley they know that they were some of the most beautiful ever built. Many of them can be found in harbours up and down the coast still working, which is a testament to the quality of workmanship put into them and why in 2001 he was inducted
into the Maine Boatbuilder’s Hall of Fame. He is survived by his loving wife, Pa- tricia “Ethelyn” Alley of Beals; children, Maurice and wife Emily, Raymond and wife Benita, Sherry and husband, Everett, Patty and husband, Sulayman, all of Beals , and Ronald and wife, Wanda of Jonesport ; Ten grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, and a brother, Warren Peabody.
WANTED
MARITIME BOOKS, MAGAZINES, DOCUMENTS POSTCARDS and PHOTOGRAPHS
International Maritime Library
P.O. Box 710, Winterport, Maine 04496 (207) 223-8846
Moose Island 853-6058
MARINE
Commercial and Recreational Boat Supplies Boat Storage
INDOOR · OUTDOOR · POWER · SAIL 16 to 45 ft. Haul out to 40 tons
Boat Winterization
INBOARD · OUTBOARD · STERNDRIVE Boat Repair ·Restoration WOOD · FIBERGLASS Boat Repowering Save on winter jobs. Shrink Wrap
Hours: M-F 8:00-5:00 Online store:
www.mooseislandmarine.com
Boatbuilder Clifford Alley, Jr.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31