By Sheila Dassatt
Sometimes this world gets so serious that I find a hard time thinking of something to write about. The last thing that I want to do is to have a continuous rant about something like whales, windmills and regulations. (even though it is a real issue). So let’s go down a different avenue and go back to the late fifties when I was just a little girl.
This story does link with lobstering and how all of this came about. You see, back in the fifties it was okay to land lobster by-catch, which made the lobstering very difficult. The results of this led to the Legislature which ended up banning the practice of catching lobster by-catch from the draggers. So a means of survival was when a lot of folks migrated to Belfast to work in the poultry plants or Rockland to work in the factories as well.
In my family’s case, we lived in Stonington and Dad went to Belfast to work on the tugboats. Along with Dad was our cousin Ed Holland and Donnie Hutchinson who also went to Belfast with him. This was in the late fifties and Dad commuted for the first couple of years but it was too hard due to needing to be on call for the shipping orders. Just think, back then there were no beepers or I phones to stay in contact. They depended solely on the telephone.
The tugboat company was known as Eastern Maine Towage which was a historic tugboat company that was founded in the 1930’s. This company was founded by Clyde B. Holmes, Sr. and was the major operator in the region. To my recollection, the tug that Dad was on was the Security which had been a wooden-hulled minesweeper during WWII. It was in the 10 knot “Accentor” class. In the late fifties, there was a couple of classic steam powered tugs which were genuine classics and historical tugs. The Seguin was one of them and the other tug was the Clyde B. Holmes. The Seguin was the oldest of the two and ended up in the Bath Maritime Museum. The Clyde B. Holmes was sent to Camden to become a floating restaurant called the John B. Wannamaker which was its original name.
The Security was renovated into the Evelyn M. Holmes which made her living quarters a little more accommodating and she had a more powerful engine. The other tugs in the fleet were the Pauline Holmes and the Mary Holmes. These were a little bit smaller tugs, but they all made for a beautiful fleet. These tugs were named for the women in the Holmes Family which showed a great deal of respect. Getting back to being a tugboat kid, it was a kid’s dream come true! Dad moved the family to Belfast in 1959, just before I started school and Glenn was already in the 5th grade. This was all as a result of the lobster shortage at that time. Dad had a designated “watch” which they all needed to take a turn, so we would go to the dock and keep him company which was great! The cooks on those tugs were fantastic, so it was a fun night for us kids. Once in a while, we got to go out on the tug when they docked a ship which was usually in Searsport. The fun part was waving to the crew on the ships. Sometimes they would lower something like a six-pack of beer to the crew on the tug! This was all in good relations between the two crews. Usually the ship’s crew was foreign and did not speak English, so it was all good. Then the big deal was when we were coming back into Belfast Harbor and Dad would let me pull the loud whistle that announced that we were coming in. What a hoot!
As time went on, my brother Glenn worked on the tugs in the summer along with some of the other teenagers that worked there as a summer job. Mostly, these teenagers were tugboat kids as well. Their Dad’s worked on the tugs and the teens followed suit, working with their Dads. It was like one big family!
One circumstance that I can remember was our tug was on the port side of the prop of the ship. The prop started turning and the tug started to be sucked into the wake. Dad got on the radio and gave the engine all that she had. She backed out of it, but it was one of those moments that you never forget. Those props on the ships are huge! These are the moments when I really looked up to my Dad as a tugboat captain. Most of the crews always wanted to be on his tug.
As time went on, the tugs were sold to Capt. Arthur J. Fournier, a Boston based tugboat captain. I also had the privilege to work for him in his dispatch office on Marshall Wharf. That was also a special time, working with Joleen Abbott who taught me how to set up the old fashioned telephone and dispatch unit. There was nothing really modern in that office until it was moved to an office facility on High Street. Then we did everything by fax which worked very well. By that time, we also had computers and did everything right from that office. Jumping forward, the tugboats were also based in Portland and the Marshall Wharf tugs were a different entity. They were called Portland Tugboat and later on became McAllister Towing. We have quite a history with the maritime world and have also kept it in the family. My brother’s son, Ed Holland is now the Port Engineer of McAllister Towing in Portland and has been there for over twenty years. My daughter Christy also did her internship with Maine Maritime Academy on the Marshall Wharf tugs under Captain John Worth and Duke Tomlin. She also had her maritime license. I’m just saying that for the love of the ocean, our family has had quite a history over the years. Time sure flies, but it has all been a historical ride!
