Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2017 70s Memories: Bruce Cunningham
Salt Water in His Blood By Lee S. Wilbur
Over the last fi fteen or so years I’ve
been writing and talking to boatbuilders and fi shermen I’ve come to the conclusion one of the prime reasons we boatbuilders have chosen the profession is a desire to be associated in some way with the water. Per- haps those pre-historical genes that niggled us to migrate from fi sh-types to dry landers skrillions of years ago were of the water magnetized variety opposed to those who farmed the land. Whatever the motivation, my friend Bruce Cunningham is one of these individuals. Bruce, born and brought up in Round
Pond, has spent some 84 years of his life in, on, and around the salt water, with the majority spent building boats for others to sail upon the waters. First becoming inter-
ested in boats through his uncle who built wooden Friendship Sloops for himself as a hobby, Bruce’s fi rst boat, a 16’ runabout was sold to a doctor in Damariscotta. Out of high school, and knowing
just what he wanted to do, Bruce went to work with his father, a joinery carpenter at Goudy & Stevens building mine sweepers for Pakistan in the Korean War. As with all young, able bodied young men at the time, we could either be drafted into the military or enlist in the service of our choice. Bruce elected to join the Coast Guard with which after Basic Training he soon found himself assigned to a weather ship in the North At- lantic... “That’s where I learned to drink coff ee,” he says, “2 hours in freezing salt laden spray, zero degrees. Then 2 hours off when I’d just about get warm and have to go out and do it again. One thing that was
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interesting though, I enjoyed spending time in the “radio shack” listening to the short wave messages and voice from around the world.”
1954, three year stint in the Coast
Guard behind him, Bruce got serious about his life’s career, returning to Goudy & Ste- vens for about seven years. Bruce recalls one of the fi rst projects,
“We got this fi berglass hull from England to fi nish off . Never quite saw anything like it. Course fi berglass was new to just about everyone then. But we got through it okay, learned a lot in that time. One of the boats we built was for the Sprague family, a 70’ powerboat named “Lion’s Whelp” By now though, Bruce had decided it
was time to set up his own business and began building small lobster boats at his house in Round Pond. From these he ex- panded to a 28’ lobster boat in the same ga- rage.
In 1962, Bruce bought a boatyard from
his stepfather which had been primarily involved with making lathes for lobster traps and building dories. Bruce soon built larger buildings and began fi nishing Bris- tol Trawlers, assorted yachts, Bruno-Still- mans, as well as an expanded line of the 20-23’ Tee-Tops to 25’, 27’ and 32’, with the 27’ and 32’ as jet boat confi gurations as well, building some 120 of the 23’s over his long career. “Later, as my son Paul was coming
into the business, I bought a good size piece of land going out of Round Pond, put up a building and went into the storage business as well. Paul was soon doing all of the boat hauling.” Bruce and I had done some skiing to-
gether back in the heyday of Squaw Mt. at Greenville. After a few years, Bruce sold his cabin to a mutual friend and gone over to beat up the snow at Sugarloaf. We’d been out of touch for a while until Phin- eas Sprague decided Portland needed to get on the map with a boat show in his old train station. Little arm twisting took place amongst many of us belonging to Maine Marine Industries for a good turnout. Venue
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was great for Bruce. He could display one of his runabouts on a trailer. Wilbur Yachts had to make do with table and brochures plus my limited attention span. Not a pro- ductive venue, but still going strong after 30 years. I soon found Bruce and along with Bruce his new partner “PJ” and her “love of life” personality. We had a great time “catching up”, laughing over past ex- periences, and the direction boatbuilding had taken us over the previous years. PJ soon took over that part of Bruce’s business most “hands on” builders care the least; bookkeeping, ordering, “the phone”. PJ soon showed perspective in the growing business, encouraging Bruce to continue introducing new models. I asked Bruce in his long career if he re-
membered any happenings of a lighter vein: “We were building a 40’ trawler yacht. Ex- haust had been installed but wasn’t hooked up yet. One of the mechanics was in the engine room hooking up when another of the crew lit off a fi recracker in the exhaust outlet on the stern. Mechanic was sure the boat had blown up!!” “Then, when I was working at Goudy
& Stevens, there was a boat on the railway where two caulkers, Gus and Steve were working. Gus fell overboard and Steve called out to him. “You okay Gus?”. Gus replied, “Well, my tobacco’s dry.” In the meantime, Paul has branched
out on his own, doing major boat hauling (some 400 boats a year), and building a new yard in neighboring town of Bristol where boat lovers can take their boats to do work themselves, a move which has proven to be quite successful. About three years ago, Bruce sold his
yard to Leon MacCorkle from New Hamp- shire but had continued to work for Mac- Corkle until Bruce turned 84. As Bruce describes it, “He layed me off ...I guess.... But, I’ve got a 26’ that I’m working on for myself and PJ.” Old boat builders never die, they just
keep driving screws or writing about those that do...
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