February 2018 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. R W S B K
KENNEBUNKPORT – Anyone that has studied the State of Maine’s maritime his- tory has discovered that the second largest shipbuilding town was not Thomaston, Camden or Belfast, but Kennebunk/Ken- nebunkport. For those that have traveled through these two towns and realized where the ships were built, will be amazed it was up at the Landing where there is hardly any room, side to side in the river and not very deep. In time these builders moved down to the Basin in Kennebunkport and transi- tioned from building ships to building com- mercial vessels such as draggers and lobsters with some yachts interspersed. One of the most noted boat builders of the 1900s was Warner and his grandson Richard “Rich” Woodman has carried on the tradition as well as teaching it to the next generation at The Landing School. Rich added, “My mother’s family, her
maiden name was Warner, and her dad B. F. Warner, was the biggest shipbuilder in the era of 20s and 30s on the Kennebunk River. This was kind of the end of the shipbuilding seen on the Kennebunk River and the yard was right on the Kennebunkport side. He had as many as 40 guys working for him building 65 to 85 foot eastern rigged draggers. His father, William Warner, had worked in the yards on the Kennebunk River after he came down from Nova Scotia via Prince Edward Island. He worked in the yards right up until the 1930s or so.” Rich was not sure exactly when his
grandfather stopped building, but thought it in the late 1940s. “He lost his son in World War II,” said Rich. “He was a P 51 fi ghter pilot and I know my mother said that real- ly took a toll on the family. I imagine the contracts were drying up a bit too. He had a real good following building a lot of boats for Gloucester and New Bedford. I always found that interesting with the shipyards in Essex. He died in ‘58 at the age of about 78.” There are a couple of B. F. Warner’s
boats still around, the gill-netter PHYLLIS A. in Gloucester and CADET in Rockland. Rich stated, “When I was building my schooner, I went down to see the THOM- AS LANNON, which was being built at that time. I was lost over on the east side of Gloucester, and this eastern rig was just going back into the water all painted up and my wife said ‘That looks like one of those boats your grandfather built.’ She had seen the pictures, but I said, ‘That’s not what
we’re here for’ and she said, ‘Why don’t you go talk them?’ I went over and talked to one of these old guys standing on the shore watching the boat go in and I said, ‘Where was that boat built? He said, ‘Maine.’ I said, ‘Kennebunk?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I asked him, ‘The Warner yard?’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I went up with my dad to pick the boat up.’ He was the oldest of three brothers and they contin- ued to run the PHYLLIS A. after their dad.” They were at the end of the career and
they wanted to fi nd a new home for PHYL- LIS A. Rich checked with the restaurant where his offi ce was and asked if they were interested in having her there. Then he formed a 501 c(3) and moved her to Kenne- bunkport about 2004. He added, “We raised a bunch of money and we did a lot of work on her. We did her decks over and we were plucking away at it, but it was getting to a point where she might not ever leave again. I could see the writing on the wall and I went back down the Gloucester to see if there was interest and there was. The good news is she is back in Gloucester, but she is hauled out.” The other known Warner built boats,
CADET, is owned by Capt. John Foss of Rockland. He found her hauled up in a parking lot at East Boothbay and purchased her. He trucked her to Northend Shipyard in Rockland, which he is a part owner of, place her in a temporary building and began rebuilding her. Rich dug out the plans and sent them to Capt. Foss, which was a big help in her reconstruction. After more than a decade, she was totally rebuilt and looked like the day she was launched and there to watch her go back in, was Rich. In the 1900s, there has been several
notable boat builders at Kennebunkport. They included: Arundel Boat Company; Herb Baum; Chick, Hoff and Pendergast; B. F. Jackson; Clement L. Clark; Reid & Pendergast and Ward & Pitts. Rich, who has been documenting the
ship and boat building history of the two towns, explained that originally many of the vessels built in the early to mid-1800s was done at The Landing. He added, “They built up here until about the Civil War and they didn’t build the locks until 1848, which was a business venture. I hear going around, why did they build way up at the Landing? Well, two reasons they said, one it was closer to the timber and the other is they had the locks. I’m thinking about both of those and why if the timber was coming from 30 miles
away so what was another two miles? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Then the locks if anything is what drove them out of there because they were paying two or three cents a ton to go through them. I’m convinced the reason they started up here, even though it was a little diffi cult getting the ships down river, the hardest thing was getting them into the water from the ways.” Some of the most noted shipbuilders
of the 1800s was: Aaron, George and Wil- liam Bourne; George Christenson; David Clark; William Cole; William H. Crawford; Daniel Crediford; Nathaniel Gilpatrick; Ira Grant; Joshua Hutchens; Benjamin Jackson; William Jellerson; Henry Kingsbury; Joel Larrabee, Jr.; Clement Littlefi eld; Jacob Perkins; Charles H. Thompson; and Charles Ward. The largest ship built here was the OCEAN KING, built by Benjamin Jackson in 1874, with the dimensions of 215.5 x 42.3 x 30.7 and displacing 2516 tons. The most prolifi c builder was Lord Thompson. Rich added, “Charles Ward is given credit for being the last shipbuilder in the Kennebunk River. He was located right over where Federal Jacks is now.” Rich spent time in Kennebunkport, as
this is where his mother’s family is from. His father came from Sanford and worked in the textile business, but when Rich was born, the mills in Sanford were closed and the family moved to Virginia for a few years. His father found work in the Boston area and they moved to Wellesley. His father sold cars until a position opened again in the textile dye business. He came to Kennebunkport “all the time,” said Rich. “My grandfather was gone but my grandmother, Margaret Warner, lived right across the street from the Arundel Wharf. When I was a kid my
Rich Woodman at his desk at The Landing School in Arundel.
parents bought a little place on Mother’s Beach and we had a little soda fountain and a few rooms to rent.” No one in the immediate family was
into boating and Rich did not even take to sailing until he was in high school. He bought a Hobie Cat and taught himself to sail. A college roommate convinced him to go to Op-Sail in 1980 at Boston. Then he went to Sweden and sailed on a Norwegian training ship for a couple of weeks. Once he graduated he thought about grad school or getting a job, but neither were that exciting so he became deck hand on the schooner NATHANIEL BOWDITCH. Then he went to The Landing School to learn boatbuild- ing in the mid-1980s. Once out of school he went looking for a job when he met the
Continued on Page 27.
Bring your boat to New England’s most capable yacht yard for the care she deserves. Repairs, refi ts, storage and dockage available for vessels up to 200 feet and 480 tons.
Belfast,Maine 207-930-3740
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 |
Page 32
