Over the last four months there have been some subtle hints in the Publisher’s Note about a new adventure. Oh, what an adventure it has been. When people learned what I had done, purchasing Jonesport Shipyard, their first words were, “Are you crazy?” I have done some crazy things before, remember the 120-foot railroad tug? That was crazy, but I truly loved that project. However, it became obvious that I needed to decide between her and my computerizing maritime material for my database. I was not getting support and then someone called promising to continue her restoration. That did not happen as he scrapped her as soon as he owned her.
The deal for Jonesport Shipyard started with a conversation with Tim Toppin of Toppin’s Diesel & Marine Services in Columbia Falls about protecting the working waterfront back last spring. He pointed to Osmond Beal’s boat shop on Beals Island being sold to a person from Florida and closed off by a locked gate. This conversation continued at Alonzo Alley’s trap shop where Jonesport Shipyard was added to the mix. This yard had been for sale for a number of years and my real concern was that someone from away was going to come in, buy it, raze the buildings, and put up a summer house. I kept thinking about this and then mid-summer I stopped into the Shipyard and talked with Sune and Patricia “Twig” Noreen about purchasing their yard. They gave me a tour and then we talked for an hour or two after which we came to a basic agreement. Then the fun began, you just do not sign a couple of documents and walk away. There was way more to this than I thought there would be and after another three months the deal was finally done on 16 November.
Just after the negotiations started, I happened to walk into Wilbur Yachts in early August and found they were selling the contents of the yard as they had closed their doors and had sold the property. I figured this would be a good way to increase the equipment and stock so I bought it. This ended up in or on three tractor trailers and now we are trying to find space in the yard for it all. The first trailer, a 53-footer, arrived at the Shipyard at the end of November and in four days she was emptied into the two main bays. Now the challenge is to sort it and move it to where it belongs, but space is an issue. The next trailer has all the equipment on it, including a full machine shop. Some will go into the main shop, but most will be placed in storage containers on-site. We need to stiffen up the floor of the mezzanine on the left side of the shop for the woodworking tools. Then we will add a mezzanine at the back of the shop for easy access to the boats we are working on. I am also looking to add a welding and machine shop to the left side of the main building so long as the price is not too scary.
The Noreen’s have owned the shipyard for 38 years and did a remarkable job operating it over those years. The facility and the equipment were well taken care of and they had lots of great customers. They also left me with three good employees, two of which have stayed on despite some teething issues on my part, trying to get a handle on moving in and everyday operations.
My wife, Ann, who was a nurse practitioner at the cardiology department at Eastern Maine Medical Center, heading the valve replacement department, retired on 1 September. She was not happy when she found out about this deal. Probably should have informed her before the deal got serious. However, she turned around and took a course on running a boat yard and is now learning the everyday operations. She certainly has the bull by the horns and has done a great job getting the office up and running for us.
Alonzo will be running the yard and overseeing everyday operations. Presently, he is trying to organize everything, which is a challenge due to the space constraints.
A real game-changer is that wooden boatbuilder Joe Lowell of Downeast Custom Boats is moving his operations from Yarmouth to Bert Frost’s shop at Jonesport Shipyard. Bert’s shop sits just to the left of the boat ramp and was built in the 1950s. She was built with 2 x 4s and the roof is now sagging and pushing the sides out. We have had a carpenter come in and survey the building and we are probably going to drop this building and put up a new one, the same size, on a cement pad with radiant heat. The radiant heat will be hooked up, but not used much as it dries out wooden boats. The expertise that Joe brings in wooden and fiberglass boats will be a huge plus for us.
There is certainly room for growth and that will all come in time. Stay tuned for an open house.
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As for the research, as many know I have been working on inputting the 1960 Merchant Vessel list (MVUS) and have about half of the over 48,000 vessels entered. Just over 18,200 have already been added to the database and I am hoping the next update will be over 10,000 new entries. I am also correcting the New York City Custom House records, which totals about 34,000 vessels. This should add a number of vessels that were built before the MVUS was introduced in 1867 and have fallen through the cracks.
I receive a lot of comments about the history article at the end of each issue. I wonder how many find a benefit or enjoyment reading the “Ship News,” which comprises much of these articles? For those researching vessels it might be of interest, but to the general reader a vessel’s movement may not mean much. Now, “Ship News” also includes other information, such as disasters, and of course most like reading those parts. Once I am done entering a baseline of ship information, I would like to input ship movements, since that would be valuable to researchers following a particular vessel’s life or analyzing coastal traffic in the 1800s. I may need help on this one.
