To the left is SAND DOLLARS III and the cruise boat MERRY MEETING under the shrinkwrap getting her pilothouse area all rebuilt at Royal River Boat Yard in Yarmouth. That is the old pilothouse in the foreground.
This is a Wesmac 42 getting a four-foot extension at Front Street Shipyard in Belfast. She will be finished off as a walkaround cruiser.
Artisan Boat Works, Rockport, ME
In the main shop they are finishing a full restoration on the 1916 Herreshoff Fish Class sailboat SARDINE for a customer from Spain. They replaced much of the boat, but did save about two-thirds of the planking and all the hardware. They also installed a Beta 14 Diesel, which fits with an offset shaft and all the components were hidden out of sight.
SEA LADY is an Aage Nielson double ender, which they rebuilt the back half a couple of years ago. They are now doing the forward section, replacing floors, frames and some of the backbone. She was built in Massachusetts and is one of the three built of this design.
A Dark Harbor 20 will be the next rebuild for a customer from Islesboro. They also may have a deck to put on a Luders 16.
In the paint bay they have a 40-foot Aage Nielson sailboat that they just finished refastening the bottom of.
WHIRLWIND, a Gil Smith catboat, which has been under construction for several years is nearing completion. If you would like to see her, she will be at the WoodenBoat Show in Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut at the end of June.
The micro-cruiser Ha’ Penny, named RISBALD, designed by Tom MacNaughton of Eastport, is nearing completion and will be launched late spring or early summer. Her owners want to sail it around the coast of Maine this summer before venturing offshore and doing some ocean voyaging in the fall.
Artisan Boat Works has been selected for two awards by the magazine Classic Boat this year. The two boats are the Ha’ Penny RISBALD, and WISP-39, a Spirit of Tradition sailboat designed by Robert Stephens of Belfast, which was built by Artisan Boat Works last year.
There are also 80 boats in storage at the yard and all these must be readied for the summer season.
Another busy aspect of the yard is the brokerage. They said that the phone has started to ring and that there are a lot of great boats on the market. Alec Brainerd, owner of Artisan Boat Works, and I had an interesting conversation about the market. He said, “There are a lot of boats that we don’t agree to list that are maybe better off on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. I worry that a lot of those boats will not find homes. There are thousands of wooden boats that are in good shape, but they are just not gold platers, not prestigious designs. I really don’t see much interest in those at all. There was a whole generation of people that had time to maintain their own boats and access to the waterfront for working on their own boats and that is gone. It is all professionally maintained boats.”
Front Street Shipyard, Belfast, ME
Like all yards, they try to keep up with the maintenance of their equipment, which they are nearing completion on.
The 65-foot catamaran RIPPLE EFFECT has undergone a major refit, both on her interior and exterior. They have replaced much of her interior joinery, added new air conditioning and steering systems, painted and gone through her shafts, propellers and rudders. This project is almost complete.
ALLIANCE, an 87-foot Dogger Bank has had her hydraulic pumps and steering system apart and reinstalled. The water-maker has been replaced, and the water heaters have been removed and replaced with ones that circulate. They are now working on her sensors and then they will turn their attention to the actual control systems. When done she will be launched to make sure all these updated systems work as they should.
The East Bay STAR is back for her usual upgrades, and some woodwork and a new radar, which is the fourth within the last year. This is all to find the right magnetron to obtain a good picture.
There was a Back Cove powerboat in after suffering a major grounding, which drove the propeller up through the bottom causing all sorts of damage. Presently, they are putting the stringers back in and this will be followed by the tankage, followed by the engines.
A J-boat, which found some rocks off Stonington is in. They have finished up the keel work and now are putting in the new rudder bearings. Not related to the grounding, they have added lots of new deck hardware that the owner wanted done.
Other work includes: a J-46 in for new deck hardware and electronics. Two other boats are getting new lithium-ion batteries banks to replace AGMs. One has been completed, and the other is about 75 percent done. A new Axopar 29 is in, and the owner wants to have some ‘bling’ added. He is adding fake teak decks, teak trim and a fancy compass. A Hinkley 52 sailboat with a centreboard is having a Jim Taylor designed keel added. This is an interesting project. This boat is rated under the ORR rating system. There are 14,000 boats rated under this system, but only 1,400 have centreboards. They do not readjust the rating for centreboarders and thus you cannot overcome the handicap. The keel shoe extension will make it so the owner can be competitive. Beyond this he will be getting a lot of brightwork refinished and the keel refaired. A couple of boats are in to have their engines pulled and serviced. LONE WOLF, a wooden sailboat, had quite a bit of work done this winter. They redid the chainplates and replaced the mast step. A Tripp 41, built in the early 1960s, was shipped from the Midwest to be finished. When she arrived, she was all apart. They removed the foredeck and have made a new front for the house. They are also building a new interior, but that was put on hold for a while but will start up again in April.
There are two new builds underway. One is a Wesmac 42 and when the owners came to see, they also got to walk around a full mock-up. After viewing the mock-up, they decided to add 4 feet. A four-foot extension was made by Wesmac and Front Street is attaching it to the hull. This boat will be designed as a walk-around, which they have designed in-house.
The other new project that they are not allowed to say much about is a 38-footer for the U. S. Navy.
There is talk about doing a Holland 32 powered with outboards, but that contract has yet to be signed.
Coming in this spring will be ABIDE, a 136-foot sailboat, for some general maintenance before heading for the Med. SYMMETRY is also coming back for her third or fourth refit. She has some issues with tankage, so they are going to pull the engine and generator to get at them. FIRST LIGHT, a 92-foot Fontaine design, is coming back for her annual maintenance.
The waterjet has been very busy all winter. They are still cutting granite for the same house on Martha’s Vineyard. In between, they have been cutting a lot of steel projects that needed to be cut very precisely. They also did a couple of more artist projects, which is always a fun change.
Gloucester Marine Railway, Gloucester, MA
On the main railway is the schooner ADVENTURE, once in the Maine windjammer fleet, now a historic exhibit in Gloucester. She is in having a new transom put in by Garrett Eisele. Beside her is the replica of the historic vessel FRIENDSHIP OF SALEM and James Knightly has the contract to make repairs to her. Gloucester Marine Railway is doing some of the outside work for him. Both these boats need to be finished and over by the end of May. Once these two are back in the water they have four other boats that need to be hauled on the railways.
Sitting at the dock is the fishing vessel EXPLORER, now owned by Ben Weed of Stonington, who has changed her name to ATLANTIC EXPLORER. They have re-rigged her for scalloping and are doing a lot of upgrading of systems to get her back into top running order.
CAITLIN CHRISTINE, a 65-foot DMR owned by Chad Osborne, is getting some steel work done. This includes gallows, installing a winch, and they are hoping to have this done by the start of scallop season 1 April, but the weather has not been very cooperative.
There are three lobster boats in the yard that need to be repowered. One of the repowers will go from dry to wet exhaust and they are trying to do that without ripping up the platform.
The day after I was there, they had a boat coming in to be hauled on the Travelift. They needed to drop the rudder, pull the shaft, fix the stuffing boxes and get him back together for the scallop season.
There were 26 scallopers coming up from Maine to dock at the Railway for the scallop season. These boats will need the normal services, but in case of breakdowns, they might need some welding and hydraulic work. There were also other boats from Maine at other docks and moorings around the harbor.
No one knows how long the scallop season will last, some thought 15 days, others hoped for 30, but all thought no more than that.
The yard is full of other storage boats, and they need some degree of work before they can go back over. There is no question that they will be busy right into the summer.
J. B. Boat Shop, Jonesport, ME
The big news is Jeremy Beal has sold his race boat, MARIA’S NIGHTMARE II, which holds the speed record for diesels. She went to a buyer from Connecticut and partial payment for the boat was a 16-foot Calvin Beal designed runabout mould. Jeremy thought they were originally laid up as the Mitchell Cove 16. Over the winter he and his crew have produced two boats out of this mould. One went to the former owner and the other is going to John Church of Jonesport. They still have one more to build for a customer from the mid-coast. They took another 16 out of the mould and stretched it 20 feet. She will be a little different than the other 20s since he has widened it to 8 feet. He added, “I cut it on the bilges and just pulled it out a little bit.”
David Osgood’s Crowley Beal 33 SPLIT SECOND is in for hard chines, which they were building off the boat. There was just a couple of smaller repair projects to do, such as fix a couple of windows and some repairs on the inside.
The Mitchell Cove 35 HEIDI MACKENZIE JR. is in for a new composite floor. She sank and the balsa core got wet, and they think she will be back next winter, and they will replace the top with a Wayne Beal 36 top.
Outside is the 38 South Shore NICK-AH-TIME of Cushing, which they put one of their 42 tops on. This was not a simple job. This boat had sat for 20 years, either on the mooring or the hard, and needed a complete refit. After she arrived at the yard the owner came up and helped remove everything back to the stringers. The owner opted to leave some of the accommodations down forward and the partitions for the hydraulics. The crew modified the top and put it on. Then they added a new bulkhead, one more berth down forward, decks, floors and stern table. They then resurfaced the hull and painted it. She is now heading over to Dennis’ Welding on Beals Island to get her hydraulics and a new Pacer pump installed.
On the left side of the shop is a 23, which is owned by Wayne Beal, Jeremy’s father. This is the plug he built back in 1988 for the mould, which was then sold to Albert Carver of Beals Island. The mould for this model is currently owned by Joe Sargent of Sargent Custom Boats in Milbridge. She needs to be outfitted for fishing, but Jeremy was not sure if it would be done in time for this summer.
Down the line, there may be a Wayne Beal 36 for a customer from Maryland. There is also a hull outside, and she is going to get the engine installed, along with her running gear. That is all they are scheduled to do on her at this point.
Jeremy then plans to go fishing and feels he has enough for the crew to do to keep them busy for the summer. He said he may even lay up a couple of hulls on spec.
Ocean Pursuits, Rockland, ME
Inside they have a Hinckley Pilot, which has been undergoing a multi-year restoration. This year they Awlgripped the hull, along with some plumbing and rigging work. Last year she was rewired with new panels.
They also have an Alden Challenger 38 yawl, which is another multi-year project. These are fiberglass hulls built by Halmatic Ltd. in England and finished by a number of yards including Hodgdon Brothers, LeComte Yachts and Molich Shipyard. They have redone her cabin tops, which meant Awlgripping and varnish on the brightwork. This year they started redoing the rigging.
A Grand Banks 32 is having her engine, a Ford Lehman, rebuilt and all new electronics. Next year they hope to turn their attention to painting. Another project is replacing the fuel tanks on a Freedom 32. There is a pilothouse 27 that has received all new windows in the pilothouse as the old ones were leaking. They are also going to redo the fuel system.
They store about 60 boats and every one of them will need some degree of work before they go over for the summer.
Royal River Boat Yard, Yarmouth, ME
The charter boat MERRY MEETING, which runs tours up and down the Kennebec River for Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, has undergone a major repair to her pilothouse. This was removed, along with all the bulwarks and any wood showing issues. The deck was reglassed along with the new bulwarks. A new house was built of plywood and then covered with glass in the shop, and this will soon be moved out and placed on the boat deck. This was challenging as there are a lot of angles to the house. Wayne Monk built the house and helped with the glass work. She will then get her annual maintenance as she needs to be back in the water 1 May so the Museum can start their trips on the Kennebec as scheduled.
There are a couple of repower jobs on the schedule. One is on a 45-foot lobster/dragger, which is having her Detroit Diesel removed and then they will put on a rubber deck.
Other work includes six big varnish jobs and a number of outboard repowers. A sailboat hit the bottom, and she will be going into the upper shop to have her keel and hull repaired. BENNY ALICE is being repowered by Freeport Diesel, who is putting a pair of engines, QSL 9 Cummins. The yard is assisting them with the shafting and a new heavy rubber rail all the way around the boat.
Safe Harbors, Eliot, ME
The big job this winter has been on a Duffy 34, which was probably built in the mid-1970s and has always been around Ogunquit. This boat is used for charter fishing and the owner’s son, Micah, has taken over the boat and just wants to go tuna fishing. He is the one behind this major refit. One of the first things they did was remove the 6.7 435-hp Cummins Diesel. Marshall Farnham, project manager at the yard, said, “It was one of those decisions. It was like well, old floor, old framing, the floor was not pitched right, and in a rain-storm, it was collecting up by the bulkhead. We decided to rip the floor out and get the fuel tanks down low. She only had one on one side, so we are trying to get the boat balanced. We will probably add a fuel tank above deck back aft for more ballast because she sits a little high in the stern. The old engine was also way ahead, and we did pull the engine back. We launched her just to see where the waterline was, and she still needs more weight in the stern.”
The deck is in, and the hydraulics are done, there is a new drive train including a new rudder and boxes and new seacocks. The bottom was stripped, fixed the blemishes, barrier coated and then painted. Marshall was hoping that she will come back next winter, and they can do from the rails up.
SWEET PEA, a Holland 32 finished out as a fishing machine, is up for sale as her owner is looking for a bigger boat to redo as a sportfisherman. This winter they built an anchor locker as the owner wanted the anchor and rode off the deck. They also added height to the rail by the helm, so it hits him above the knee. While all this was going on they added a new muffler. Now comes the regular annual maintenance.
In the upper storage building they had a Riviera that needed the bad core in her foredeck repaired. This was about a 13 x 15-foot section, which was removed, re-cored and reglassed. They removed the oil-canning and added a nice camber to the deck. They also made repairs to the head and water systems and added coolers to the MTUs. The owner is talking about coming back next year to have the bottom stripped and redone.
They have about 200 boats in storage, which includes what is at the Kittery yard. This will keep them busy for the rest of the spring and into the summer.
Wayne Rich, Bernard, ME
Wayne and his uncle, Chummy, took on an interesting project this winter on a wooden 1959 Henry Barnes bass boat. She had been sitting for a while on the hard and she was shrinkwrapped, but they knew she needed bottom work, engine pulled and a new platform. Once she arrived at the shop, which was built by Wayne’s father, Walter, at his home, they pulled three planks off to see what was going on. They found that the knee had separated from the stem and keel. They removed the water tank, knock out the bolts, jack it back together and put in new threaded bronze rods. Another problem is that she was built with clinch nails, which were now 60 some years old, and they were not coming out. Wayne said that the first eight feet of a rib was loose, but 4,500 bronze screws later she was refastened. When they replaced the platform, they did it in two sections, one over the motor, which is raised and the one in the cockpit. The platform was done in vertical grain fir, with Teak Decking System black in between the planks. When finished the deck would be sealed with oil.
They cut the plank seams into the hull. It is interesting as some like this and others want a smooth hull. Wayne said, “I love seams on a wooden boat because it shows, ‘hey it is a wooden boat.’ Show your planks, especially if you have got one that has good planks lines. A 60 some-year-old wooden boat is kind of hard to make look like a glass boat. You are not looking at every nick, ding, knot hole, check, bung plugs that are swelling. They take your eye off all the imperfections that an old wooden boat will have to me.”
The engine was to be back soon, but they still needed to get the engine hatch finished so they can see how much clearance the engine has. Then it is deck hardware, paint, and varnish.
Wayne had been working at Rich’s Boat Yard in West Tremont, but decided last year to do more in his own shop. Last year he did the platform in his boat, but did help Rich’s Boat Yard last spring. He said, “Something about the old wooden boats, I guess it is in the blood.”
