Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS June 2018 Willis Beal Talks About SPRUCE III and...
BEALS ISLAND-NEWPORT, RI – Last fall at the Newport International Boat Show in Newport, Rhode Island in September, I learned that SPRUCE III had been sold to Donald Tofi as of Newport. This boat was owned by the Gardner family and was used to run between Beals-Jonesport out to Roque Island with supplies and people. This boat was the twelfth boat to come
out of Willis Beal’s boat shop on Beals and was launched in 1974. Willis said, “I designed it similar to a lobster boat, just put a higher trunk side on it and a longer haul- ing house. She has the regular bunks down forward the engine was inside the cabin, so we covered that with a box and made a little table on the top of that. It went real well. It had a 365 455 Olds in it. One of the cleaner sailers that I have built. Of course my father (Alfred) was the foreman at Roque Island at that time. They thoroughly loved the boat. It turned well, and it had a shoal-draft keel so it could get into shoal water at the wharf. They also had another boat at the same time that Freddy Lenfesty had built. That was the ROQUE.” The family used SPRUCE III for sev-
eral years and then decided to build a new boat. “They decided to have a glass boat built
at Young Brothers,” said Willis. “They had a 38 foot Young Brothers built and cut back to one boat. The Cutler family bought both of their boats ROQUE and SPRUCE III. Rose Cutler was Mrs. Gardner's daughter , named for her mother, and that family kept the SPRUCE and sold the ROQUE. I think that went to New York, but I am not sure. SPRUCE stayed I think in Rhode Island. It was sailed two or three times to Bermuda and it got caught over there in a hurricane in a covered building on the water. There was several boats in there, and the building went to pieces and it damaged a lot of the other boats, but the SPRUCE was saved, because a beam fell right across it and held everything off . Rose heard of me building the miniature boats and she called and asked me if I could build one of the SPRUCE III and if nothing happens, she will have that within a couple of years. She is getting it for her son, because her son owned the SPRUCE III, and fi xed it all up. She wanted him to have one he could enjoy on the shelf and hopefully, if I live long enough, that will be done.” Willis explained the model saying, “I
just used the same model I had been using. I had been building all 38s so I cut it back to a 35. It was quite similar to the MELANIE
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SPRUCE III after getting a total facelift at a Rhode Island yard.
JEAN, a little bit higher and a little bit wider. I had built a 35½, well in fact that one was 35½, I ran over 6 inches on it for them. I built one for Charles Beal that was 35½ in 1971. I believe this one, was built in maybe '76 - '77, (1974). Willis has been busy this winter in the
shop. He said, “I fi nished a miniature boat that I was building for a man in Blue Hill. It is a replica of the LETA FAYE III. He's had that in a boatyard and had it all fi xed up. I also did one for Benny Pratt, a replica of the STELLA ANN as it was built with a spray hood. Benny Beal let us have his half-model of that boat to build it by. So, I built a half-model plus the miniature boat for Benny Pratt. Benny Beal was there several times while I was building it, and then Benny Pratt took delivery of it, he asked us all up to Cliff 's Restaurant and we all had a meal together celebrating that boat and as we were carrying it out to put it in his vehicle, Benny Beal said, “Willis, the only thing I can see in this boat that I would change is the exhaust, I know you thought they were stainless, so you painted them aluminum color.” I said, “No, really Benny I thought they were gal- vanized.” He said, “Then, I wouldn't touch it.” So I thought I had it pretty close. This model will be donated to the Beals
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Island Historical Society as soon as Benny Beal is back going. Over the winter he broke his leg and has been recovering from that. “He (Benny Pratt) wants us all three to be there for that presentation,” said Willis. “Then I have to build Benny one, the fourth order coming up, with a house and cabin on it like it is today. And he is saying now that he is going to launch the STELLA ANN, put a small gas motor in it, and have it to play around with.
I caught Willis over at Jonesport Ship-
yard working on the EIGHT BELLS, getting her ready for the water. He had most of the bottom painted and then he was going to make a repair to the trunk cabin and was hoping to have her in the water by the middle of May. This winter Jonesport Shipyard did
a lot of work on the Willis built torpedo stern boat, TATIANA for her owner from Port Clyde. So the conversation turned to designing and building a torpedo stern boat. Willis explained, “I made that model for myself. I knew they were very sharp forward and fi le sided. My father had one, I don't remember it, but I've seen pictures of it. I had seen some of those boats. I saw the THOROBRED and REDWING both. They were really beautiful things in the water. My father told me that they will scare you to death, but they won't drown you. The one my father had, my mother use to sit on the engine box and reach both coamings. You can tell they weren't very wide. That was one of Will Frost's boats. My father had a chance to have a brand new 30 foot cut off stern boat, built by Frank and Oscar Smith. It was going to cost $500. He didn't want it. He said, "Ugly looking. No, I want one of those torpedo sterns". That shows you what young people have in their minds at times. He said, “I made a big mistake, I would have had a brand new boat.” “My Uncle Erwin had made a play
boat, torpedo stern and gave it to my fa- ther,” continued Willis. “I've got that boat, and that helped me a lot, by looking at that design. He was pretty clever about doing those things. I fi gured it was probably pretty
Continued on Page 24. KUSTOM STEEL
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