October 2014 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. Richard Stanley Boatbuilding Moves to Bass Harbor
BASS HARBOR – Just off the shore of Bass Harbor on Mount Desert Island is a small island with a causeway connecting it to the mainland. For the last 30 years it was the home to Little Island Marine, which operat- ed as a boat yard, mostly for the many fi sh- ermen in the harbor. Now it is the home for Richard Stanley Boatbuilding, who moved from a yard off the beaten path in Manset. Richard explained, “When Lorraine (his wife) and I bought my father’s business we had to put all of our efforts into storage and maintenance. That was really not what we wanted to be doing. So over the years we had been looking at putting buildings on our own property and that was not looking like we were going to be able to do that. Lorraine’s father built this addition on to this shop and planned to have it for fi shermen to use. Then he got thinking and came and offered us this facility. We thought about it a little bit and fi gured that would work. We could downsize our storage customers and get back into boatbuilding like we wanted to, actually have a little of both, and that would work.”
Richard and Lorraine have been oper- ating out of storage sheds in Manset. They were leasing the buildings and doing just storage and repair work. Richard added, “Before that I was building and storing boats on the Clark Point Road, then in the 1990s we began storing and maintaining boats in Manset. We didn’t have any boats to build so we downsized to just storage and maintenance and moved out of the Clark Point Road. Our lease had run out in July and we didn’t want to renew it so when this opportunity came we took it.”
They have space to store boats outside,
a Travelift, and two huge work bays. There is not as much storage room and Richard said, “We are going to have about 10 boats, all wood. We got rid of our fi berglass boats and all the bigger boats, which went off to other boat yards.”
What this location has is visibility. At Manset they rarely saw any visitors, but already they have seen more people in just a month than they ever saw at Manset. It does
not hurt to be next to the cruise boat that goes out to Frenchboro.
One of the bays will be used for storage and repair work. The other bay already has two boats in it. One is the 40-foot Friend- ship sloop built by Charles Morse in 1902. Richard said, “The owners have just com- missioned me to do the interior and look at the engine. I started on her in 2008. We had to barge her across the water, sit her in a cradle and then haul her into the shop on the Clark Point Road. When I got her into the shop I thought I had got myself in over my head on this one. However, once I got started tearing into it, I was okay. Someone already started rebuilding it and made quite a mess. They put a new keel in it with an inch and a half hog in it. Even the rabbet had the hog in it. So I had to take that all out and fi x it. Every part of her is new except for the steering gear. Originally they hired me to rebuild the hull fi rst, to put a deck and cabin on. We did that out on the Clark Point Road just before we launched her for the move to Manset. We were going to put just inside ballast in it, as she never had outside ballast. Then they decided they wanted to put some outside ballast on. So I made a keel plug that sent it out. When they sent it back up it was bent because they laid it on its side.” With a screw jack Richard was able to get it back in shape.
Also in this shop is a Stanley 19. Rich- ard said, “This is the fourth one that we have built on that model. Unfortunately, my apprentice is going off to college now. We started working on her when he was in the eighth grade. He wanted to drop out of school because he was just bored. They weren’t challenging him. His mother wanted to fi nd something that would get him to stay in school so she came and talked to me. I had a keel that my father had built years ago and said we can bring that in set it up and build it. He is coming back and we hope to get her done this winter. I would also like to bring it to the Maine Boatbuilder’s Show this winter.”
There is quite a list of things to do, which include: fair the hull, put on the
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Richard and Lorraine Stanley in their new shop.
waterline on, rudder, put down epoxy cloth over the deck, steam bend the coamings, put the cockpit sole in, bench seats, a few bulkheads, put on the hardware, make the spars and rig it.
There is a job lined up on the Friendship sloop HEIRONYMUS, a 33 foot Friendship sloop Ralph built the year Richard was born, 1962. She is going to need to have some of her planks replaced. “She had some elec- trolysis problems, said Richard. “Nothing ever bothered that boat until one summer one of the sons took her to southern Maine to a marina and lived on the boat for the summer. When she came back she had all these problems in the planking around the fastenings. We thought it was probably because of the marina. So we replanked as
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needed. She came back the next year with the same problem going on. I decided it must be an electrical problem inside the boat. So we re-wired her. When they pulled the wiring out they found that several staples had been put through the wires in places. It only bothered above water and usually electrolysis problems attack the fasteners, not the wood. I have got to replace all those planks this fall.”
Other work includes rebuilding a row-
ing skiff Richard had built in 1983. She was damaged in an incident at the mooring and some timbers broke. Also there is an old peapod coming in to be rebuilt.
As for new construction some is talking Continued on Page 19.
419 Harpswell Islands Road (Rt. 24) Harpswell, Maine 04079 207.729.1639
www.greatislandboatyard.com
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