Jeremy Beal lifting a gasoline race engine into his boat.
JONESPORT – There has been a lot of changes in the lobster fishery over the years, but none compare to the changes in how the boats are powered. Back in the 1800s the fishermen rowed their boats and then they switched over to sail as the went further out. With the advent of the internal combustion engine, it was not long before fishermen started having them fitted into their boats. First, it was one-lungers running on naphtha or gasoline. These engines evolved over the years gaining more and more horsepower and this allowed the fishermen to go out even further. Then in the 1980s entered the diesel engine, which offered a more economical and more durable option to a gasoline power-plant. Doug Dodge is the great nephew of Harold Gower, a well-known Beals Island boatbuilder, and worked in his shop starting the ‘60s. He has always had a love for engines so we asked him about the evolution of engines over the years.
Doug began learning about engines by taking them apart and reading books. “I have been interested in engines since I was old enough to turn a wrench,” said Doug. I had a little 1.7-hp Neptune outboard, weighed 17 pounds. I used to take it apart every two weeks and put it back together, just checked it out. Sometimes I made a few mistakes. One time I oiled everything in the magneto that wasn’t good. I had to take it all apart and wash it out. You don’t oil the points.”
There were some older men in town, one had an Indian and the other one had a Harley, which had a panhead engine. Doug added, “The Indian was a 1948 and I had it stored in the boat shop and when the shop burnt the bike burnt too, but I had the engine and transmission in the garage. The first engines I ever worked on were motorcycle engines, when I was 12 or 13 years old. The first boat engine I ever worked on, installed, was for Uncle Harold, which was probably ’62. I did not rebuild them, I installed them, lined them up, wired them, hooked up the pot haulers and stuff. The first one that I remember was a Palmer Marine, which was an International Harvester, 345 cu in. 225 hp marine engine. Palmer just put their name on it, but it was an International Harvester truck engine is what they were.
“I learned about engines by taking a physics course,” continued Doug. “Engines run off of air pressure which is 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level at 70 degrees on a dry day. Everything, even when you breathe, you think you are sucking air in, you are not. You are making a void and air pressure pushes it in. An engine, when the piston goes down, it makes a void, the air pressure pushes down through the intake manifold, in by the valve and on top of the piston. The piston isn’t pulling the air in, it is air pressure pushing your hand down because it is pulling on the bottom of your hand. Once you get that established in your mind, everything on the earth works on air pressure.
“Then I went away in ’63 to automotive school in South Portland,” explained Doug. “Graduated from there and then I went to aircraft school for two years. About ’68 I started building Oldsmobile engines. I taught night courses for the school, three nights a week on engines and two nights I taught welding for night school for adult education down to Calais. Then I taught the boat courses. One part of it was teaching engines and we built the engine for the school boat, which was a 455 Buick and that would have been in 1972.”
The boat school boat was 31 feet in length and was designed by Doug. He had six or seven students and they built the boat and engine. Doug added, “We did all of the welding and everything for that boat. It was launched in ’72 and in 2022 they had a reunion, a 50-year graduation class, which was put together by Al Strout one of his students.”
The School Boat, which was her original name, now known as LUCILLE, is still going strong and owned by someone in Brooklin.
Doug stopped teaching in 1975 and went back to Beals Island and worked with his uncle. Over the years he has worked on a lot of gasoline engines, such as 455 Olds, 455 Buicks, 292 6 cylinder Chevys and once in a while a Ford. In the 1980s fishermen began switching over to diesel engines. Who owned the first diesel on Moosabec Reach? Doug said, “I believe Guy Carver, Jr. and Lester Faulkingham. They had around 80 hp diesels and I think they were called Sterrett diesels. Then after that Caterpillar was coming in and Ford Osco. They were like 125-135 hp Osco and Ford Lehman, but they were the same engine but different companies marinized them. In the 80s, they started coming out with more power with less weight. The 3208 Caterpillar was a big, big seller. That ranged from 210 to 425 hp that was a rage in the 80s. They put them in 35′ Duffys and that was one of the first ones I worked on for Leland Peabody. He had the slowest boat and when I got through with him, he ended up being the fastest boat in that class. He had the wrong propeller, the engine too far forward and nobody knew it at the time, but I hooked propane up to it. You have to be careful of that, because if you use too much propane you will slow them down.
“This was kind of funny,” added Doug, “When I did the engine for Leland Peabody and I rigged the propane up with a ball valve and a valve on the tank. What I did was open the ball valve and the valve on the tank I just kept cracking it real easy until she reached the max RPM. Then I shut the ball valve off with the tank valve on. I had it rigged so I could reach down with my foot and just hit the lever and turn it on. We were down to Winter Harbor racing and he was racing Andy Gove’s LOVE BOAT and he had 375 hp and Leland had the 355 Cat. Leland was getting lined up, but he was idling in reverse when they dropped the flag. I ran up and opened her up and then I hit the propane, and she jumped. We were going by everybody and he started slowing her down with the throttle. Besides the propane and the others changes, I also had adjusted the exhaust valve so it opened a little bit sooner. Anyway, he won quite easily.”
Looking back, Doug said, “I remember straight 8 Buicks. They were a big thing back in the 50s. Six-cylinder Chevys and 6-cylinder Fords, flathead not overhead valve were popular back in the 50s. Charles Beal would win one year and he had a straight 8 Buick with an extra carburetor. They had hot exhausts with a pipe put through the side. Flagship was an engine, which was 327 cu. in. Chevy. They were pretty popular and the International, that was pretty popular in the whole state. V16 Packards and in Steuben someone has got a 1920 V16 Cadillac engine. That engine reaches from here to Bangor. That engine has got to be 5 feet long. They put them in seiners. Most would go to the junkyard and buy an engine for $40 or $50. They liked those flat head Dodge and Plymouths, six-cylinder Chevys. You’re talking 80 hp, no big power. There were a few flat head V8 Fords. I think that the first engine that Nernie Libby raced with was a flathead Ford. He’d start it by winding a piece of rope around the front pulley and start it like you would an outboard because the starter was no good. He was strong as a bear.
“The first pot hauler Jerome Crowley had it and it was put in by Alston Alley,” continued Doug. “He used to do a lot of engines for boats. Great guy. I used to about live in his garage. He had a garage to work on cars. He actually built a couple boats. His place was near the cemetery up in the middle of Beals.
Doug explained, “I don’t do much with diesels, but I have rebuilt a couple. It is totally different. You have to be set up for it. You have got to have a lot of equipment, plus they stink.”
