Joe, Danny, and Jessie Lowell at Even Keel Boat Shop.
YARMOUTH, MAINE – In the last issue we covered the genealogy of the Lowell family and some of their early boats. In the interview I did with Joe Lowell, he discussed Even Keel Boat Shop, which was a partnership between Carroll Lowell and Archie Ross.
Joe explained, “They bought this place in ’61 or ’62 and he built this place. He sold the land to Casco Bay Ford to pay for the materials for this building. He built the building and started the business here. He had a few hard years. One winter I know of, he went to work for someone else. Royal, at that point, had gone to Portland. He was building where Key Bank is on Commercial Street in front of DiMillo’s. He built a few lobster boats, some real big boats there. He built some 58-footers, some big yachts and he built the BONAVENTURE, which was like a 75 or 78-foot dragger. Dad started building here. About ’89 I asked him how many boats he had built in here and he said about 100. He did a lot of small boats too. There are some older pictures where he has got three boats going in here. So, he built a lot of smaller boats. Dad built his first boat by himself and paid for all the materials in ’57. It was a 22-footer that is still around. She was in Harpswell, now she is up in Newcastle. Then he sold that, and he built a 28-footer for himself and that one is still around. She is down in Massachusetts, but she used to be out on Chebeague. He just started to build some of those boats. He built the MAY BELLE which was his own design. I believe she was 30 feet, clipper bow, beautiful little boat. That is what really set off Even Keel. He was building 36-foot lobster boats and the 33-footers, one every three months. Gramp Frost was building his 34-foot models in six weeks. They really had to have their crap together to snap them out like that. Watching my uncle’s work was phenomenal, because they did not have to think about it, it just happened. You’d watch Dad and you would sit there and you would wonder if he was going to get the work in that day. In a matter of three hours, he would do the amount of work that somebody else would do in eight hours. He would not even break a sweat. He had the knowledge and skill to do that, and they were all like that.
“Royal closed down Portland,” continued Joe. “He was pretty much just designing at that point in time and Malcolm came to work here. Donnie was still only on the weekends and Danny came back after Bruno, which was late 60s or early 70s. They were here and they just put out a lot of boats, and they were meticulously done.”
Joe was born in 1977 and at that time Carroll was building TAM O’SHANTER, which was a 42-footer of Royal’s design, the first split wheelhouse lobster boat, built for John Coffin. My brother Jamie was born in ’72 and Jesse was born in ’74. In the early 70s during the gas crunch is where it really put a hurting on this industry. Both of us were really starting to come up through the ranks at that point in time.
“Back then there was a lack of timber,” said Joe “a lot of it went to the house industry. Lack of how to cut it right and they don’t twitch stiff out of the woods in full-length. They used to forward it out in 16s and 14s and 12s and 8s. It is pretty hard to get a 30-foot keel out of the woods in 16 feet so that is what you have to find. Carroll built some sportfish cruisers in the early ‘70s, which went down to Long Island. They built a 58-foot three-story yacht over at Dugas’s railway. She is still going to this day. She is down in Bermuda or Bahamas. He built the 49-foot Cobra. three engines. He built GANNETT III, which went down to Montauk. He built the 36-footer that was in Royal’s book and another 36-footer. Originally the one in the book was MARY LEE. The book says Bruce Cunningham, built it, but Royal had a tiff and he wrote my dad out of the book. If you look in the picture, it is my dad running the boat and my godfather, who I am named after. Bill Ganski is a guy who had her built in Cundy’s Harbor. Then Charlie Barnett bought her from Freeport and named her the LITTLE FEATHER. Charlie had her, he sold her around 1990 to a fellow in Harpswell. He built a second LITTLE FEATHER at that time. That model was a different model that was my dad’s model off Ed Drisko’s boat. She was a sheer plank higher and Pete Kass built the boat. So, the original LITTLE FEATHER went to Harpswell, I can’t remember the fellow’s name who had it and then Clayton Whitten bought her from him in the late 90s. He fished her for a few years and then he got a Young Brothers and he asked Jamie and I if we wanted the boat. We ended up finishing off a Young Brothers 40 for the boat. We brought her back here and started to take her apart and unfortunately both did not see eye to eye on working on her so she did not get done. When we split up, we sold the boat to a friend and he kind of took it apart the rest of the way and he just recently called me and asked me if I wanted the boat back. It is a lot of work. I do have the original engine for it. She was a beautiful boat.
“My dad’s favorite boat that Gramp built was the MERGANSER,” continued Joe. He just absolutely loved that boat. He owned her in ’68 and ’69 and sold her so he could buy a house. If you look at that Drisko model it is like a modern version of the MERGANSER without the tumblehome and just a little bit bigger. When you look at Royal’s 36-footer and you look at that, that is his idea of MERGANSER with the tumblehome. Two completely different boats.”
While TAM O’SHANTER was under construction, Royal had built a shop in Durham and was saying that Carroll was not building boats anymore. He also had taken the crew. When TAM O’SHANTER was finished Carroll owed money to the Harris Company for supplies. They had a boat, a 42-foot Harold Gower that had been burned. She was originally built for Pete ‘Claw’ Kelley in 1966, who used her as a gill-netter. The Harris Company and dad made a deal, and he rebuilt her for what he owed them. Joe added, “They left him cold, his nephews and brothers. He came through it. He loved his family and just let it go, just let it go.”
Carroll did a lot of repair work and then in the early 1980s he built a number of models for Lee Wilbur. Most were wood on mahogany backboards, and some were fiberglass models based on the Newman 46, which he had made a mould for.
Then came SEA SCRIBE. “Originally started for Richard Gilmore, of Gilmore Seafood in Bath in ’81,” said Joe. “I can remember going in the woods, I was four years old, in the middle of winter, in the middle of a blizzard, looking for the keel timber on a wood lot in Gray. I can remember riding out there with the old man who owned the lot and dad, and it was cold. I remember standing in front of that truck to try and stay warm as they picked out the keel timber. Then dad started building it. Well, what it started as and what it ended as was two different things. They had seen the WHISTLER, which dad had built in ’73, just after COBRA. It was a yacht with a clipper bow. If you had taken the Drisko model and stretched it 2 feet to 38 and then put a clipper bow on it that was what WHISTLER was. Rich Gilmore saw her going up the Kennebec in Bath and fell in love with it and commissioned dad to build him one. The problem was is that he built himself a new house and he built his daughter a new house and built his son a new house at the same time and lost his ass. He did not have the money to continue. Dad approached Lee Wilbur and Lee advertised the boat for sale and he sold it to Donald McGraw of McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, Ali McGraw’s father. Don came in here and changed everything. That was the first boat that I have ever worked on. I helped Dad put down a pine cockpit deck. I drilled the screw holes at 5 years old, I put the screws in. You know, he was there but I still did it. I was so proud of that. He came home one night and goes ‘You are not going to like it,’ ‘like what, dad?’ He goes, ‘Well, we have got to take the deck out.’ ‘What?’ Don McGraw wanted an all-teak cockpit, all around the wash rail and teak swim platform. Dad did not want to do it, so he shot him an astronomically high price, $15,000. Don goes absolutely. That boat left the shop for $127,000 and dad said he had 15,500 hours into it by the time it was done. Don gave him, I think it was, a $15,000 bonus too.
“Funny story about that boat,” added Joe. “It gets launched and Don comes up to get it with one of his hired captains. It was October when he left Freeport. Dad came home that night. I can remember him coming up to the door, he had this sick look on his face. ‘What is the matter, dad?’ He goes, ‘It is not good, it is not good. The captain was going out on the wrong side of the buoys out of the harbor. A week later Dad gets a call, ‘You did something to this boat, and sank it.’ Dad goes, ‘What? I did nothing of the like.’ He goes we ran aground in Buzzards Bay at low tide on a sand bar and then the waves washed overboard, and we had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. When Don finally realized he was not getting anywhere telling my dad he was to blame for it, he goes, ‘Will you fix it?’ Dad goes, ‘Absolutely not.’ It ended up going to Crocker’s. She is still going strong to this day.”
Don McGraw donated her to Mystic Seaport in Mystic; Connecticut and she was there for a number of years. When she was sold, her name was changed to BLUE FEATHER. Alan Van Winkle owned her and cruised her all over. He took her down through the Panama Canal and around the West Coast. When he passed away his kid sold it to a young couple. They had let it go a little bit and she was sold to a man named Foster, who had her restored, and is still her owner.
Then WHISTLER came in. They cleaned all of the paint off, repainted her and freshened the motor up then Dad sold her. “I can’t remember who he sold her to at that time,” said Joe, “but it ended up being with Andy Berry. He owned Maine Helicopter and Ted, his brother, owns cell towers. Andy had her for a long time and he just recently sold her.”
Rick had a big Novi that needed a stem, and he asked my uncle Dan to do it. Dan did not have the time and suggested he ask Carroll. Carroll made the stem and took it back to Dan to have him put it in. Dan looked at it and goes ‘Why are you putting this stem in this boat? This boat is not worth the stem.’ Dan said just have Carroll design you a boat. Carroll drew the boat out and it is the only one that dad has done with a Novi stem. “The funny story is that this boat was known as the CONNIE O’CONNOR, because it is named after Rick’s grandmothers,” said Joe. “They were both Connie and one was O’Connor, so CONNIE O’CONNOR. Dad was doing this piecemeal and that is why this boat took forever.”
Joe remembers another story saying, “Sid Brewer came in and said to my dad, ‘I have got a Will Frost half model.’ Dad looked at it and said, ‘No you don’t, but I can build one’ and that is where the OSPREY started from. Rick had run out of money and disappeared because his wife had left him and went back to Texas. Dad got the boat, and he sold it to Alan Dugas and Joe Raynes for what Rick owed him.
Joe Raynes had always wanted a boat based on MERGANSER, but never ordered one. When they started OSPREY, he just had to have one and that is when he had TIMBER WOLF built. Joe added, “We lofted them out and Dad did the station molds. He made two of everything and then put them together. When he did all of the planks, he would spill a plank, mirror another for the other side and make two more for the other boat and sit them in a pile. As soon as the station molds came out of OSPREY they went in TIMBER WOLF and we went to town. Joe was going through a rough time and he and Dad had a tiff, it was not good. They were the closest of friends that you could ever imagine. Joe took the boat and put the cabin on over at Royal River Boat Yard and finished that part of the build.”
OSPREY was launched Columbus Day, 1988. It was the last boat to go down the railway.
CALLIOPE was the third version and was launched July 27, 1990. Joe remembers that they raced CALLIOPE and TIMBER WOLF that summer. CALLIOPE had a 360 Chrysler in it and did 27 knots. They also raced OSPREY, which had a 450 Ford and TIMBER WOLF had a 460, and the 460 cleaned house. “The 300 hp 454 when OSPREY was brand new before Sid had a full cabin put on,” added Joe. “She had a bass style cabin and did 35 knots before she soaked up. Sid put the cabin on, and it slowed her down to about 28. Joe always kept his tuned up. In 1990, MERGANSER came in. We put a new keel, horn timber, a few ribs, a couple floor timbers in her. I was not a big part of that job because I was still in school for the most part and only worked on the weekends.”
This was followed by a repair job on Gene Tunny’s, the boxer, boat. “He and his wife had a place down in South Bristol,” said Joe. “We put a keel in the boat, I can’t remember the name of it or who built it, but that was the last thing here. Then dad and Archie separated and that is when he went to Dugas’. That was around ’92 and he was there until January or February of ’97. In those years, we went down and helped him when he would let us. Dad was getting old, and he had some medical issues.
Webber’s Cove Boat Yard in East Blue Hill wanted a larger model and went to Carroll for a 43-footer. Joe said, “We built the plug out of Poplar and that is when dad passed away, halfway through it. That was July 27, 1997. We took two weeks off and then we came back here with some friends to help, and we finished that plug two weeks early. My brother Blaine came up from Florida and he talked the Cousins’ boys into having the plug glassed, faired, and build a mould. Then things went south with Blaine and the Cousins’ boys. They came down, grabbed the plug and Blaine went with them to East Blue Hill where they finished fairing it up.
There is no question the boatbuilding history of the Lowell’s is an interesting one. It also tells how this business evolved over the years and how hard it was to make a living. A lot of customers took advantage of the boatbuilders as they tried to get something for little or nothing. It did not make a difference how talented you were, it was one of the hardest businesses to succeed in. However, there is a testament to the good ones, and that is the longevity of their boats. Longevity is due to the quality of the build, but that is also dependent on the owner and how well he takes care of it.
