Page 18. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2017 S I W B
LITTLE BRUV was launched from Willis' shop as LYNN & STEPHANIE for William 'Kill- er' Smith in 1978. She would also be known as SPECIAL K.
BEALS – One of the pleasures of covering the waterfront of the State of Maine has been getting to know the people of the coast. I have always gravitated to the boatbuilders and many have become personal friends. One such person I always enjoy stopping by and talking with is Willis Beal, one of the most noted wooden boatbuilders on the coast. Willis has remembered a lot of the Island’s history and some of it has been passed down for several generations. Here is the second part of some of the stories he remembers. “There were a lot of diff erent stories,”
said Willis, “My father told about fi shing in high school. He would row down to Spruce
Island and fi sh there by hand. He wanted a powerboat of course, my grandfather Alton, made preparations for him to have a brand- new 30 foot cut off stern boat from over to Frank and Oscar Smith’s with the cut off stern, spray hood and an engine box. He really didn’t want that type boat, he wanted the torpedo stern boat, because he had been going with Uncle Erwin and Harold Alley in those torpedo boats. They were Frost boats and he thought they were just the tickets. They went to Bakers Island, because they heard Frankie Faulkingham, he was tending the light there, having one of those Frost boats for sale. So daddy, his father, sister Doris and Erwin sailed there to see the boat.
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They spent the night of course and it came up a storm while they were there, rained hard. They decided that the boat needed a little work, fl oorboards, engine box and stuff . Grampie told Uncle Erwin if they could swap boats he would buy the boat and Erwin agreed to it. On the way home it was still rough and foggy and they sailed side- by-side and daddy said that the seas would hide each other because they were so deep. My Aunt Doris laid up under the bow of that boat the whole way home. They got partway home and the hose came off the engine that pump the salt water overboard. They had to stop and bail it out and put the hose back. After they got home they swapped boats and engines. Probably a good thing because Un- cle Erwin’s boat, the DORIS A., seven years old, that they thought was in good shape but it was popping the bungs out and come to fi nd out the fastenings were gone. That winter, my father had the boat hauled out and in the Spring he decided that he ought to have the garboards checked. Before he put it back in the water he had Alvin Beal come up and look it over and while they were out to haul, Alvin met them and said fellows the fastenings are all gone in that boat and daddy said oh Alvin, come on you are always jok- ing. He said, I don’t care it’s gone. Put your fi ngers between the planks in the timbers. So Alvin refastened it and fi lled the holes with cement. He said that sanded off as nice as could be and stayed right put. We fi gured probably by him getting that boat it saved Uncle Erwin’s life. He had an episode with it when he was fi shing. He had a Gray Marine engine in it and that was a used motor, and they were always broken down. One day he started down the reach with a few traps on to go down and set them. He noticed a Socony oil boat coming up the reach, well his engine stopped. He tried to get it going, but couldn’t do much with it, so we threw his anchor out. He kept watching this boat coming up the reach and he said ‘Well they’ve got to see me with these traps on.” He kept working on the motor trying to get it to go, fi nally the oil boat got so close that he kicked his boots off and jumped in. He said the boat struck a glancing blow and when the boat came out by the bow he started hollering. The men looked around and saw daddy in the water. He said if he hadn’t been a good swimmer he would’ve drowned because that frock soaked him down so that he couldn’t keep the water out of his mouth. But they got a dory overboard and he said they were really quick about doing it. They got to him and saved him.”
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SATURN is an 117-foot railroad tug built as the BERN for the Reading Railroad in 1907.
Hours: Monday through Friday 9 to 5 • Saturday and Sunday by appointment AT THE CORNER OF MCKENNY ROAD AND U.S. RT.1
4 MCKENNY ROAD • STOCKTON SPRINGS, ME 04981 • (207) 567-3200
WWW.STOCKTONSPRINGSMARINE.COM
She is one of the last railroad tugs and is
being saved for future generations to enjoy. For more information: (207) 223-8846 or to join the Friends of SATURN, send a check for $25 or more to P.O. Box 710, Winterport, ME 04496. On Facebook: Saturn-Historic railroad tugboat restoration project
Willis added that this was probably
around 1935 as he had graduated from high school in 1933. His father ended up with pneumonia and that kept him out of the military in World War II. “My father-in-law [Millard Lester Al-
ley] was hauling traps,” said Willis, “right in company with me, and it was a calm day. He put a few traps on the stern of his boat and he caught a fl oat in his rudder so he leaned out over with his gaff to hook and when he pulled on the gaff his feet slipped and over the side he went. He was a pretty agile and strong for his size, and he thought he could get back aboard the boat, but he forgot to kick his boots off . He tried three diff erent times. The fi rst time he almost made it and each time after that he would do a little less. Well then he thought he would go down and get a hold of those traps on the stern of the boat and maybe he could climb out on those, but they started to come off . He had mind enough, he didn’t panic, he went around the hauling side, and while he was hanging on he said ‘I can get in that boat, if I can get a hold of that warp in the bottom of the boat. I can make a loop and tie it in the limber hole in the toe rail and put my foot in it and step right aboard and that is what he did do. He was black and blue for days afterwards. I didn’t even know he had got overboard. I said you ought to go into Roque Island and daddy would let you have some dry clothes. ‘No sir, I’m not going to get any dry clothes’ he said ‘if I quit now I’d probably never come back to go lobstering.’ So he fi nished hauling that day and the next morning he said he had one job to get himself to go back aboard the boat again because he had come so close to going.” “He had nine lives,” continued Willis.
“He had several cases where he had close calls. He dragged scallops and almost rolled his boat over. It was the fi rst day he hoisted the drag over the side and it was only an eight and a half foot wide boat, Frost built 33 foot boat. He didn’t have the distance judged just right, his boom was off just a little too far. He usually had a bronze hook that he would reach out and hook the drag with and pull it onto the table and he didn’t have that with him. He hollered for his father-in-law to trip the winch and he got excited and didn’t get it tripped. When Millard dove across the boat he struck the winch, tripped it and she uprighted than they pumped her out, pulled his boom over further and took it on." In the next issue we will conclude "Sto- ries from the Island By Willis Beal.
We are Still Saving Tug SATURN
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