[TO NARRATIVES AND PHOTOS LIST]
AUGUST 23, 1999
PHOTOS
These are lobster trap buoys; nemesis of the pleasure boater and a vital piece of gear
to the working lobsterman. Boat propellers, keels and rudders commonly entangle these buoys and toggles.
Hook one of these on your keel or rudder, and the boat all but comes to a halt.
Cut one loose (from its trap on the bay bottom) with your prop or with your knife as you free your boat, do it in view of the
lobsterman and you understand why the lobsterman rarely gives friendly waves to the "yachties."
The buoys float on the water surface and connect via a 3/8" line to a baited lobster
trap deep on the floor of the bay. Some have an additional float called a toggle that provides added lift and
supports the line vertically as the tide level changes. This sometimes hides out of view just under the water's surface.
Each is painted with a characteristic color pattern identifying the owner lobsterrman.
Some compulsive lobsterman carefully sand and paint these buoys. Others seem to just pour the paint on.
If the fouling is bad enough, the buoy line is cut away with a knife resulting in loss of the lobster trap, a value, I'm told, of
about $60. Some lobstermen lobbied to cancel the Wooden Boat Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. They felt that
80 or 90 racing sailboaters in their heated competition wouldn't give a damn about a lobster buoy under their bows.
I guess they met with some agreement. The race went on. Some lobstermen moved their
traps away from the race course.
Hatches closed, decks wet and it rains some more. The boat has only three leaks. One is right over the toilet paper roll.
I once had a boat that had an untraceable leak right over my bunk pillow. It's hard to say which is worse.
This is a view forward from the cockpit through the dodger window. The varnished wood is the
main companionway hatch. The bunched towel in the foreground is dealing with a leak.
Just outside and forward of the towel is a vertical pipe, the "Charlie Noble." It is a chimney
for a small soapstone fireplace inside the main cabin. A fire makes for a warm cheery cabin on cold dreary nights.
"When and If"
This is General George Patten's boat racing in the Wooden Boat Regatta. She was built in 1938. He planned to sail her
"when the next war is over, and if I live through it." She's 63'6" LOD and 43 tons.
Before W.W. II Patton was a colonel. He had been passed over two times for promotion to Brig. General by
President Roosevelt. He felt that if he were not promoted for a third time, he would resign from
the army and cruise this boat around Cape Horn to Catalina Island. General Patton was killed
in an automobile accident in 1945.