April 2018 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 21. B D C I Continued from Page 9.
ruin me. And then that will be the end of me.’ He wouldn't say no more.” Another change was that instead of a
sternpost, Frost put a round tube with a brass cup on it where the shaft came out. “[Harold] Gower made fun of him,” Bob said. “Will says, ‘Yeah, but she don’t get no air. She’s grabbing all water.’” In December, the boat was ready for
launch. [Rhymes with ‘ranch’, when Bob says it.] “All we could fi nd for an engine was a 6-cylinder Dodge converted engine with a fl ywheel forward. They put the reverse gear up against the timing chain, they kind of battened it around. Then they put a square water manifold on her. But, they put a neck under the manifold, it come up beside the manifold, and the carburetor set on top of the neck.”
December was warm that year. For
launching, the boat was trucked to a location on Commercial Street close to the Million Dollar Bridge. “They heisted her over, cradle and all,
with a crane,” Bob said. Frost’s son-in-law Riley Lowell drove the boat out by the bridge and then back past the small crowd. “I looked at old Will Frost standing next to me, I said, ‘Will, I can row faster than that boat.’ He says, ‘Yuh, I told ya your father was gonna ruin me!’” A mechanic named Guy Curate worked
nearby. He told them to take the neck off so the carburetor was right on the engine. “Then, she went from 2800 to 3800 on her rpms,” Bob said, “she was going 20 miles an hour.” Frost was quite relieved. “Once they changed the carburetor, it was a diff erent story.”
The Dyers still weren't allowed to have
the boat until almost dark. “Portland Press Herald come right down and took a sail. That’s the fastest thing in Casco Bay for almost 15 years,” said Bob. Finally, Capt. Henry told Frost, “Look,
there’s no lights on that boat. We’ve got to get home before dark or the Coast Guard will get us!” (Bob’s father was scared of the Coast Guard.) Heading home, Bob turned her up to about 3300, wide open. “When I got the right propeller for her,
you turn her 3400 wide open,” Bob said. “And she’d go across that bay from Dia- mond Island to Portland Harbor - that’s a mile, one mile course - in 3 minutes.” When the Merganser was new - Bob
was 17 - he took his sister to town shopping. While they were in town, a northwest wind blew up. “Now it's seven miles from Port- land down by Long Island to Chebeague.
But when you come down by Long Island, Diamond Island in a northwest wind, I'm gonna tell ya, it can get rough,” Bob said. When Bob’s father came home, he asked Bob’s mother Mabel, “Where is that boat?” “In town,” she said. Henry said, “Didn't you know it was
gonna blow? Look at that glass, it's right bottom up!” And he walked the fl oor. Bob said, “I came home, put the boat
on the mooring, rowed ashore, walked in the house, walked into the kitchen, and my father said ‘How did you come home?’” Bob told him, “I come down the main
shore, then I come down to Clapboard Island, got in the lee of Clapboard Island, then come right across to Little Chebeauge and got in the lee of Little Chebeague, and come home, why?” When Bob told his father that, Henry
just went right upstairs, never said a word. Bob had learned that method listening to the old-timers. “You see, you learn if you listen - you learn a lot.” As a side note, Bob remembers at age
7 being in a fi sh house on Chebeague that looked toward Cliff Island. “You could walk to Cliff Island on the ice,” Bob says. Two old men, Will Ricker and Alvin Louder, were baiting trawls on either side of him. One of the men told young Bob, “You know, before you go, there ain't gonna be no ice in Casco Bay.” Bob asked him why, and the man answered, “The ocean currents are going to change… the warm water's coming in towards us, going right up into the ice pack, and melt the ice away.” “I wish today I could remember which
man said it, but I can't,” Bob says. “In 1979, they walked to Little Johns on the ice. And so I still didn't believe him. But look what's happening these days.” January 20, 1949, a month after Mer-
ganser’s launch, Bob went to town and mar- ried his true love Beverly Calder. They had grown up together on the island. “It was 17 below zero, the day we went to town. We had quite a job getting out through the ice with that wooden boat, I’m telling you.” They walked down Congress Street, got married, then dined at the Colonial Restaurant, which was across from the Civic Theatre. “We walked by a place where Ken Mckensie played western music on the guitar and it was sent to the outside by speakers in the wall. Then we stayed at the Everett Chambers Hotel, and the next day it was back to work.” Sixty-nine years later, Bev still always calls Bob “Handsome Husband". “We went right to work in [Merganser]
the minute that we got her,” Bob says. “That boat always had to work, to make the family
M. C F N Continued from Page 13.
funded projects, and contributed to peer-re- viewed publications and grant proposals. “This is a vital new position that will
enhance existing monitoring work, and allow the department to focus on emerging research priorities,” said Maine Department of Marine Resources Science Bureau Direc- tor Carl Wilson. “Jesica brings the academic and professional background necessary for the growth of our lobster research program.” Rebecca Peters (left), from Silver
Springs, Maryland, will coordinate the Maine, New Hampshire in-shore trawl sur- vey, fi lling a vacancy left by last summer’s retirement of longtime project coordinator Sally Sherman. The inshore trawl survey, conducted in
spring and fall, evaluates marine resources inside the coastal waters of Maine and New Hampshire. Groundfi sh, lobsters, recre-
ational fi nfi sh species, and non-commercial species of ecological interest are assessed. Peters received a Bachelor of Science
in Biology from Old Dominion University in 2012 and a Master of Science in Marine Estuarine and Environmental Science from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2016.
Upon graduating, Peters was awarded
the Sea Grant Knauss Marine Policy Fel- lowship in 2017 where she worked in NOAA Fisheries Offi ce of Science and Technology to support the habitat science program and NOAA’s Ecosystem Science and Manage- ment Working Group. “Rebecca brings relevant, valuable
experience to the in-shore trawl survey,” said Wilson. “The trawl survey provides critically important data for issues such as fi sh stock recovery, fi sheries management, Essential Fish Habitat designations, and adaptation to the changing ecosystem.”
a living.” The fi rst winter, he and his cousin Joe put off 30 crab traps. The fi rst of March, she was on the edge of the bottom outside of Halfway Rock. “We went out, 40 minutes outside the
whistle, and we loaded her with codfi sh. Them great big codfi sh you know, you could just haul em in over the side, they were so big. I don't think we got $50 for the boatload of fi sh. The codfi sh wasn't worth nothing. We come home, and my father says ‘All right, I like the feel of her.’ He didn't go to make money, he wanted to see how the boat felt outside, when it was choppy.” Next they got six trawls made up and
went to Cape Elizabeth for haddock. “Then we started making money. We did that every year for 10, 12, 15 years before he got sick. That boat was up on the end of the Cape every spring. Then after he got sick I went 3 years with her… “That boat worked every day! She went
on the banks all winter, she worked! That boat had to go working! ...if we couldn’t get outside trawling, we’d haul in lobster traps. You know what I mean? Then during the summer sardining, that boat going 24 hours a day, night and day, you know.” But you know what they say about all
work and no play… Merganser would “go like the devil,” to use Bob’s favorite phrase, and he loved to race her. “She turned out to be the fastest thing in the cove, oh, for about 15 years at least! Before they started coming up with these big powerhouse engines and stuff like that.” She could travel the mile course in 2 minutes fl at, at that point. “I used to do it all the time, teasing them other guys that had the Beals Island boats. And I’d say ‘Well if you can make it quicker than that, let’s go race,’ and they never would go race me.” “Merganser was the talking thing of
Chebeague all the years that we had her. While we was hauling outside, around Cliff Island, all them Cliff Island boats always come up alongside and look at and watch her, while they’d haul their traps. Yup, they thought that was some nice looking little boat, now let me tell ya, when she hit Casco Bay.”
Will Frost had built a 35-foot yacht in
Falmouth named Tam O’Shanter. They put an 8-cylinder Chrysler in her, which was a fl at-seated engine, but she had a lot more power than the Merganser. One day the Dy- ers were heading toward Mussel Cove where they had herring caught. As they crossed the bay at Clapboard Island, they looked up and saw the Tam O’Shanter coming. “He come up alongside of us... looked
like he was coming like the devil. Of course my father had a tunafi sh stand on that boat every summer, all summer long. He loved tuna fi shing. So my brother was up in the stand, sitting in that seat. I let the yacht get right alongside of us and I opened my engine wide open, thinking he was gonna go sailing right by me, but we went just side by side.” Bob motioned his brother to come down from the stand. “And we went along and beat him!” The yacht owner came alongside Mer-
ganser and exclaimed, “WHAT have you got in that for an engine?” The Dyers told him it was a six cylinder. “Oh no you don’t,” he said, “I’m coming aboard.” So Bob had to take the cover off the engine so the yacht owner could count the spark plugs. “Then he went home and called Will,”
Bob said. “Will called my father. And I guess he give [Will] the devil. Cause we beat him with that six cylinder engine. Of course Will knew Merganser went good, but he didn’t think she went THAT good. And so we’ve had quite a bit of fun with the old boat, I’m gonna tell ya.” “I never got beat until one day me
and my father and my oldest brother was coming in from outside, haddock fi shing,” Bob says. “We was trawling in the spring, about the fi rst, middle of April, and Henney Thompson come in by. He went by me just about as fast as I was going. He went inside to the dock, tied up, went up into the store, and got to telling everybody that he’d beat me. Fair and square.” One of the Fowler boys who lived on Long Island was there, and he came running
Continued on Page 26.
EFFORT AND ART PRIDE AND JOY
SEA HISTORY ALIVE
mysticseaport.org/stories
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
