April 2018 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 9. B D  C I By Ruth Lowell Bob Dyer of Chebeague Island is a well-


known fi gure in Casco Bay. Born in 1931, he had his own boat and lobster traps by the age of 13. He fi shed 68 years from 1944-2012, for herring, lobster, crab, haddock, cod, whiting, shrimp, tuna… "You see I had a lot to do with boats. Dragging, tugboats, lobster boats, you name it and I done it," Bob says. Bob has a weathered face and thick head


of white hair, and at age 86 he still gives the impression of energy, confi dence, and good cheer. His booming voice, with deep Maine accent, is obviously accustomed to storytelling. “There’s a sign in my garage,” he tells


us, “it says, ‘If you ain’t got 20 minutes, don’t stop here’. Cause if I get telling stories, they can’t get away. “I told my son-in-law, if I pass away,”


Bob says, “I want you to take that sign down from my garage... and plant her right in the middle between the two doors of the church. ‘If you ain't got 20 minutes, don't stop here!’” These stories are taken from an inter- view by Jamie and Ruth Lowell in Novem- ber 2013.


RUMRUNNERS Bob remembers some early stories


about rumrunning. He remembers two par- ticular boats in Portland: “Right at the last part of the wharf, I knew they were called rumrunners, and they were 50 odd foot long. I don’t know who built ‘em or anything... but they was long and narrow kind of thing, and they’d go like the devil.” Bob’s father Capt. Henry Dyer and his


neighbor Albion Miller used to haul rum. Capt. Henry had a 36-foot boat built by Hen- ry Barnes in Harpswell. “She was what, 10, 12 foot wide. Had a little 4-cylinder Palmer engine in her. [The supply boats] would bring that white rum in by Halfway Rock and anchor, and all the lobster boats would go out and bring it in to Rosie’s Point.” There was an old farm where a man stored the rum in his barn. “They claim he was the only one that


could take and dump that white rum out and drink it straight. It was so powerful. Every- body else had to wet it down with water.” The last trip Albion Miller said Capt.


Henry made, Henry had a feeling he was going to be caught. “They loaded all they could get aboard of her, they started in, and Albion said the sweat started running off my father’s forehead, all the way in. And fi nally they got in, and got it unloaded. And my father looked at Albion and he said, ‘Never again.’ And that was it. “I don’t know if they seen other lights


around? My father was so scared - they’d have lost everything if they were caught.” Eventually the man died who owned


the farm, and the barn was burned down. According to Bob, the Harris Company also made quite a bit of money on rum running,


and also from overseeing the Liberty ship building during World War II. EARLY DAYS


“When I was 13 years old, I had my own


lobster boat,” Bob says - he pronounces it ‘but’. “I had my own lobster traps, I had a car in the city of Portland, me and my cous- in Joe bought one in town. I done my own mechanic work, put my own engine in my own boat. And I was lobstering when I was 13 years old, in a 20-ft Hampton boat built down at Small Point. So from them days right up through, I lived in a boat. Course I skipped school a lot.” Capt. Henry had a large boat named the


Betty D, after Bob’s sister, built on Peaks Island by John Parks. She was about 50 x 20 and could fi t 300 fathoms of twine on deck - “the old cotton” - 150 fathoms on each side and room to walk down the middle. They used her for trawling and sardin-


ing, and she was very high-sided. “When you wanted to go aboard, you had to stand on the side of the dory to jump up on the washboards. That’s how high she was,” Bob said. “She had 5 bunks plus 2 lockers, you could lay up if you wanted to, have a nap. We would have 14-17 tons of trawl going to Jeff ries, and we’d get 7 or 8 thousand, 10 thousand, and not think nothing of it.” The Betty D was built just before


WWII, and when the war started, the gov- ernment requisitioned the boat. “They come and they said to my father, ‘We got to take your boat. If you come with it, you can have it back. If you don’t, we’re gonna take her. Because we need her to haul people around here.’ So my father said, ‘Well, I might as well go with her.’ So he did.” Capt. Henry, the boat, and the family


moved to Long Island to be available for the war eff ort. The Betty D had a gasoline engine and 500-gallon fuel tank, and she’d burn a tankful of gas a week. After the war, the Betty D was at Red


Shenry’s machine shop getting processed for release. There was a 671 GM engine sitting on the wharf that had no paperwork. The government offi cial said, “Go ask Red what that engine is for.” They went over, and Red told Henry, “That’s yours.” Bob said, “So they heisted the gas engine out, and put that GM in her, and she went 11 years in that boat before she cracked a head. Then I put a new head on her, down here at the boatyard (with some help).” “When we was trawling in the Betty D,


she had that 671 GM, it cost me $13 to go to Jeff ries and back. Now that’s back… when it was 13 cents a gallon, 14 cents a gallon, fuel was. Course my father wouldn’t run it, he wouldn’t run it at all.” By “run it”, Bob means “run it fast”.


Speed is one of his true loves. “With Bob, she was idling, or she was in the corner,” said friend Ed Drew. “About every couple of years they'd go up to John Toft at Peacock Canning Company and say 'We need a new


Bob Dyer of Chebeague Island.


engine.' They'd slap a new Chrysler Crown in 'er.”


According to local legend, one morning


when Bob’s wife Bev went out to start her car, it wouldn’t start. Not even a sound. You see, Bob had removed the engine and put it in a boat. I asked Bob if this was true and he just said “Yes.”


MERGANSER 1948-68


At the beginning of 1948, Henry Dyer


went to Allen’s Corner to see Will Frost about a new boat. The owner of a sardine fac- tory in South Portland had loaned the money for the boat, and he wanted her named the Merganser because he loved bird hunting. He paid for a name plate on the stern, a beautiful varnished plaque with a bird on it. Henry wanted a wider boat than what Frost was building. “They was building


them 8 foot 8, what we called sled run- ners,” says Bob. “They draw as much water forward as they did aft, you know. And my father says to Will, he says ‘I want a rocker keel, and I want her a foot wider. I want her 10 foot wide. I want a boat that when I go outside, I got something under me.’ Well he built her 9 foot 9.” It took Henry a few months to convince


Frost to build the boat and to iron out the details. Construction started that summer. Apparently Frost was uncertain about the new design, or else he liked teasing the Dyers. “Henry, you're gonna ruin me,” Frost kept saying. The second time Bob visited the shop,


“she was about half, three-quarters done. [Frost] said, ‘Yup, yup, your father's gonna


Continued on Page 21.


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