A young man's dream, delayed but not forgotten

September 2024

Dear friends,

I was recently asked by Sigrid Trumpy whether I was still writing. Yes, but not as frequently. I took some time to collect my thoughts because writing has always had a calming effect on me.

I have so many little stories. My son Andre sent a text with some photos and it said, “Dad, I pulled your boat out of the basement.” He wanted to store his Hummer inside. I wasn’t mad at him but each time I looked at the photos I was a little mad at myself. It was an unfinished project that I left a long time ago in Lubec, Maine .I knew I had to pick up the boat. 

It was a long drive alone, from North Carolina to Maine. Margaret was busy building a cottage.

Slipping my boat “Patience” off her trailer, I hooked just the trailer to the truck and I was pretty much ready to go. The triple axle luminum trailer is frisky to say the least. With road construction going on in every state I crossed, it was like riding a wild horse.

Alone with my thoughts and nothing but the road as company, I had mixed emotions going back. It seems like a lifetime ago. When we moved there in the 1970s, I was married to my first wife then,Nicole  It seems that time had passed it by where there was once fishing and fish factories, now there wasn’t much.. 

Even when times were hard, there was pride. No one felt poor because we were all about the same. For me, I worked on fishing boats and when I wasn’t working, I helped my neighbor Bert Wilcox skin fish and smoke them. 

In the spring, the beach behind my shop would be littered with boats in need of repair. The tide in Lubec could drop 19 feet so we would drive the boat up at high tide and put wooden crabs to hold them upright. The tide was the best task master. You have six hours of work time. You go down, pull off two planks at a time, spiling for new plans, fit, fasten and caulk her up before the tide reached you. I was chased by cold water many times. One day, I couldn’t find my caulking irons scouring the shop. I looked where I worked the previous night and wondered if they sunk in the sand or whether someone ran off with them. Today, it would be easy to order another set on the internet but back then, my phone had a rotary dial. I called my supplier in Rockland and they were on back order. I asked where they were made and it was in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Without caulking tools, my little repair business was literally dead in the water. Or was it just a good excuse for an adventure. Back in the day, I had a French car, a Renault Le Car, at the request of my French wife, Nicole, and off we went. I wanted to stop in Digby, home of the world’s highest tide that comes ashore. You have to be there at the right time and right place to watch. We waited and the fog rolled there and it seemed to get thicker by the minute. Just when we were ready to give up but other people who were also waiting egged us to stay. The roar was getting louder, boom, out of the fog a wave then splashed to shore. It was impressive. This is the tallest tide in the world. It comes in for miles.

Traveling on, we found a rooming house that was reasonable and close to town. It was the 1970s and we were young. Next, we headed on to Lunenburg foundry, parking just in front of the factory. It was a beautifully built of bricks with amazing appointments. Walking around, we met the man at the front desk. He told me they still make them but to put them back in production they needed an order of 1,000. I didn’t need that many. He said why don’t you go down to Smith & Rhuland. They may be able to help. This was the shipyard where the famous “Bluenose: was built. If you love schooners like I do, this was the holy grail of Canada.

I knocked at the door to the Smith & Rhuland shop and there was no answer. We walked in and there was a big stern dragger under repair. I felt out of place. There were lots of men working, paying us no mind. One man, possibly the foreman, saw us standing there. I gave him a short version of my story. He asked if I dug around in the sand. He told me about a caulker who had been with the yard for years. He said the man’s widow may want to sell his set. He drew a map and explained how to get to the lady’s house. “I just want to give you a head’s up. They are a little strange,” were his parting words.

I drove down the little winding roads, the rain pounding down and the fog still rolling in and out. I turned down a small gravel road with overgrown branches brushing against each side of my car. It was eerie. Walking up to the front door, I noticed the paint was peeling from the old house. I knocked on the front door and a short young man with thick black rimmed glasses asked me what I wanted.

I asked for his mother and he belted out “Mom!” When she walked to the door, three young ones were behind her. They all wore the same thick black rimmed glasses. The little girls loved Nicole’s curly hair and played with it.  I asked if she was interested in selling her late husband’s caulking tools. She sent off the young man and he came back with a rocker caulking box. Inside, there was a worn out roll of canvas. She laid it down on the kitchen table, pushing stuff to the side. As she unrolled, I saw the most magnificent set of irons I have ever seen. There were pointers, tippers, splitters and irons from 0 to 4, setters, garboards and reefers as well. Fifteen tools in total. The seat had places on the outside to put tools in and a hole where cotton rolls could be pulled, ready to use.I asked her what she wanted for them and promised I would take good care of them. She said $150 and I pulled out my money and started counting. She stopped me, put her hand on mine and said “You have to take the caulking box too.” It was time to go because I didn’t want to be there after dark. It was before GPS and it was difficult to find her house already. 

As I walked out to the porch, the oldest son grabbed my arm and whispered “My dad hung himself in the barn and stepped off his caulking stool.” I said nothing back. Just nodded. I was 22 years old. I didn’t have any words of wisdom or comfort.

We drove down the road aways from the house. I stopped, took the tools out, and then chucked the box as far as I could, deep into the woods. It was an experience to remember. 

Everywhere we drove you could see these beautiful wooden schooners. After stopping and asking people about the schooners, the same name kept coming up:  “David Stevens over on the third peninsula.”  

Finding his shop was pretty easy. Walking in, I met David who was building a beautiful schooner out of angelique, a very hard wood from Suriname in South America.  He explained all the saw blades had to be carbide tipped. We shared our love of schooners and we looked at a map together. He marked the best places to look for more schooners and it was the start of a great adventure. We were driving down winding roads. Up and around a corner I had to stop. Right in front of me was the most beautiful 25-foot boat I’ve ever seen. It was love at first sight. It had all the appointments of the “Bluenose,” the most famous fishing schooner ever. 

My eyes rolled over from the clipped nose stem to the reverse tumblehome at the transom. She was never built as a yacht. She was a scallop dragger. I knocked on the door, no answer. The next day, we drove past it again and this time there was a for sale sign. I knocked again and again with no answer. So after walking up the hill to the neighbors I learned the owner came home later, around 5:30-6 p.m.

We came back later and the owner told us the history of the boat. She was built in 1940 by Vernon Langille on Tancook Island. He built many boats, from the Tancook whaler to the Tancook scalloper. With the bluenose being the most famous boat in Canada there were some small fishing boats that were sailing draggers. This one was never rigged to sail and was just for motoring. The owner was too old to sail but he still wanted a baby bluenose. This was the last one of five and he thought it was the last one that survived. This was in 1978.

I knew she had to be rebuilt so I had already talked myself into a project. Borrowing my neighbor’s truck and putting her on my trailer, it took time to take her back to Lubec.

The next few years I would work on her when I could. But life somehow got in the way. Taxes on the shop kept going up, hard times hit the fishing industry, and I left to work in Florida half the year. We sold the first shop and bought Johnny Morson General Store that was off the water so the taxes would be a lot less. The basement was to be the boatshop, then a coffee shop on the ground floor and a nine room apartment on the next two floors. After buying it and moving our stuff in, including the boat and wood, I went down to Florida to work and earn money. The building burned and I didn’t have insurance. I had paid cash. I came back to Maine, cut the top two floors off, and capped it. With no money left and a business started in Florida, I felt pretty desperate.

I landed a job working on a James Bond film, “License to Kill.” This money put the roof and top and another floor. For the next few years I would go work on the house with two floors that were livable. By the time I installed the furnace, my first marriage had ended. The stress of this ordeal had taken its toll on both of us. The little bluenose sat waiting, unfinished.

Now, 46 years have passed and the house is now my middle son, Andre’s. He called me and said, “Dad, you have to do something with your boat.” He sent me photos of her sitting in a field behind the house. He tried to give her to the Lunenburg Museum but they said they didn’t have the funding to restore her so no thanks. 

This project started when I was 22 years old and I’ll soon be turning 70. Looking at those photos he sent me, I was just as smitten as the first time. She’s a little jewel of a boat. I had left Lubec a long time ago but I shouldn’t have left her behind. I said to myself this is not how her story ends.

On the long drive to Maine with an empty boat trailer there was plenty of time to reminisce and reflect. Maybe when I was so young I wasn’t ready to take on this project but now I am. Pulling into the Lubec, I went straight to the boat. Flashing through my brain was how do I get her on the trailer. Andre’s good friend Mark McCurdy stepped up to help. We needed to pick her up. I had straps and Mark started calling. I went around town going to a boat shop, the old R.S. Colson Boat Works where I spent a lot of time building and fixing boats. Walking inside, a feeling of peace came over me. I felt like I was home.

I tried to see old friends and stayed with my friend Jimmy Simmons. We went out on his boat, hoping to spot whales and cruising around the Canadian Islands.

Finally we found a man with a backhoe large enough to pick up the boat. With two strap chains and a cable she slowly lifted up and backed into the trailer, putting some old tires on the trailer for cushioning. She softly landed on the trailer. I wanted to stay longer but it was time to get on the road. 

I had a long way home and had a lot of time to think. I looked back and questioned if I really had the knowledge to do this project right at the age of 22. Probably not. Now, I do. 

I already came up with her name. “Perseverance” will do fine.

Until next time,

Jim Moores