Classic_Boat_2016-04

CLASSIC BOAT APRIL 2016 69

LOBSTER BOATS

Above: lobster

boat Minkie at

Eggemoggin

Reach Race 2014

Right: The helm

and winch on

Abigail & Carter

Above: lobster

boats Alicia B

(left) and Shanna

Erik and Made

In USA

Mount Desert Island; designer/builders Doug Hylan on

the Benjamin River near Brooklin and Peter Kass of

John’s Bay Boat Co who both build classic wooden

lobster boats and lobster yachts; Richard Stanley, son

of wooden boatbuilder Ralph Stanley of Mount Desert

Island, Jamie Lowell of Lowell Brothers, descendants

of Will Frost of Jonesport. These are just some of the

builders of lobster boats in Maine.

It was interesting to see that the wooden boatbuilders,

mainly from Mt Desert Island and further south,

congregated at one end of the panel, the glassfibre

boatbuilders at the other. “Wood is warmer in winter,

cooler in summer, and has an easier motion,” said Peter

Kass, a proponent of wood, though he’s happy to use

GRP to lower maintenance on the toerails or aft where

the lobster traps come in. “One lobsterman decided to

retire at 58 with ‘aching joints’ – but bought a wooden

boat and with that was able to continue into his 70s.

One of the plusses of wood is that is absorbs vibration.”

persisted. Will Frost didn’t make a lot of money but he
had an eye for a boat, for a good sheerline and balance,
and he and the Beals have had a great influence on
lobster boat design. Some were later used as plugs for
glassfibre versions, which have taken over up there from
wooden boatbuilding to quite a large extent.
Further south, the Mount Desert Island area was
another centre of lobster boat building, with builders
Chester Clement of Southwest Harbor and Cliff Rich of
Bernard building a traditional ‘planked-down’ keel,
where the planking flows down into the keel much the
way the hull of a deep-keeled sailboat is planked. This
was called a ‘built down’ construction, resulting in the
familiar rounded hull with good seakeeping qualities that
traces its lineage right back to the Vikings.
These two builders influenced the others in the area
who often trained with them in their early years, and
most worked from a half hull model. Their market was
somewhat different because of the influx of summer
visitors from the late 19th century. Many of them
cleaned up and captained their lobster boats as charters
in the summer, and fished and built boats in the winter

• leading in time to the emergence of the leisure lobster
  yacht. There, boats were heavier than the Jonesport
  boats but then the Mount Desert Island builders would
  say that the emphasis on speed over a more seakindly
  shape and displacement was unwise.
  Each proponent holds their opinions strongly.
  “Some of those skeg-built Jonesport boats are pretty
  good sea boats, but a semi-displacement, built down hull
  is much easier to work out of,” said Richard Stanley,
  offering a more balanced view.
  The argument persists to this day, as we found at a
  symposium on the lobster boat that took place in the
  summer of 2014 in Castine, Maine. There, examples of
  commercial lobster boats, the lobster style picnic boat
  or lobster yacht, and other variations were on the dock
  and the harbour moorings, while later a panel of
  boatbuilders, designers, historians, owners, skippers
  and lobstermen discussed the pros and cons, the
  history and the future of the Maine lobster boat in the
  Delano Auditorium of the Maine Military Academy.
  These included Calvin Beal Jr, who designs many of
  today’s leading lobster boats, transitioning from wood
  into GRP; Glenn Holland from Belfast’s Holland Boat
  Shop, building the GRP Holland 14, 32 and 38; Rich
  Helmkie at the Bass Harbor Boat Yard in Bernard, KATHY MANSFIELD

KATHY MANSFIELD