A TRIP TO THE NEW ENGLAND STATES

by Ben Robicheau ~ brobicheau@cogeco.ca

In the spring of 1968 my brother-in-law Don Bolstad was hired to tow five boats to Portsmith, New Hampshire. These were Cape Island style fishing boats built on the French Shore, ordered by Americans who liked this type of boat and also liked the fact that it was more economical to have their boats built in Canada. Since it was cheaper for the engines to be installed in the States, four of the boats had no power. The fifth boat, which was a little fancier than the others and looked like it was intended more for pleasure than for work, was outfitted with a V-8 engine that the owner had delivered while his boat was under construction.
After picking up the boats in Meteghan we towed them across St. Mary’s Bay to Westport where we prepared for the long tow to Portsmith. Deciding it would be a good idea to have a "back-up boat" in case of emergency, we took the one operating boat out for a test run. Within minutes we noticed that the temperature gauge was steadily rising and getting close to the danger zone. An investigation revealed that the engine’s cooling system had been hooked up backwards. After a bit of re-plumbing, a fast run around the harbour confirmed that the problem had been corrected. That evening we headed out across the Bay of Fundy with our tow bobbing along behind us like a flock of oversized ducklings.
By the next morning we were following a route south among the picturesque islands of the Maine coast. We made one overnight stop and by noon on Friday had arrived at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, the border between Maine and New Hampshire. We headed upriver to Portsmith Harbor and searched the waterfront for room to dock six boats. The public wharf was crowded with a variety of fishing and pleasure craft, but just next to it was a slightly run-down but empty and apparently suitable wharf. After getting all six boats safely tied up, we reported our arrival to the relevant authorities and called the boat owners.
Late that afternoon the first owner arrived to pay his share of the towing fee and pick up his new boat. On Saturday two more were towed away and the owner of another paid his fee and told us his boat would be OK where it was until he picked it up on Monday. The owner of the last boat, the one with the engine, had said he would be there early Sunday morning. This worked for us as long as we left by noon in order to be well on our way by nightfall. He finally showed up late in the afternoon with a dozen friends and several cases of beer. He was in a big rush to get under way because he lived a couple of hours down the coast and wanted to make it home before dark. After getting his entourage and his beer aboard, he started the engine and headed straight out of the harbour without bothering to check the boat out at all. It was a good thing for him the cooling system problem was discovered back in Westport Harbour and not off the coast of New Hampshire.
Now that all the boats were taken care of, we called Customs to tell them we were ready to leave. By the time an agent came down to check us out and all the paperwork was done, it was too dark to navigate the unfamiliar waterway so we settled in to get some sleep and wait for daylight.
Around 1:30 in the morning the running of the bilge pump woke me up. This was unusual because the pump started and stopped automatically at random times and it had never woken me before. Don was still sound asleep in a lower bunk, he was famous for being able to sleep through anything, a skill he picked up during his years in the Navy. After a few minutes I realised that the pump was running on a lot longer than usual so I got up to check it out. The water level in the bilge looked a bit higher than would be expected and the pump didn’t seem to be making much headway. I started the engine to run the bigger auxiliary pump and the water level started to drop. While the engine pumped out the boat, I went back to lay in my bunk for a couple of minutes.
I awoke about twenty minutes later to the sound of the engine still running and Don shouting, "Get up, get up, we’re sinking!" Jumping from my bunk I saw that the cabin floor was covered with water up to the level of Don’s bunk, which is what had finally woken him. Rushing out on deck, we were both at a loss to understand what was happening. Where was the water coming from, why were we sinking? Don pulled out a hand-operated pump and yelled to me to go get the fire department to bring one of their pumpers.
As I ran full-tilt through the nearly deserted streets of late-night Portsmith, two things occurred to me: number one, I was in my bare feet and had on no shirt, only a pair of jeans, and number two: I had absolutely no idea where the fire hall was. Luckily, a couple of blocks from the waterfront I came across the police station. A startled-looking Desk Sergeant seemed slightly confused as to why a half-naked person whose boat was sinking needed the Fire Department but he informed me that it was another couple of blocks up the street and two minutes later I was urgently punching their front door buzzer.
After what seemed like an eternity, a sleepy-eyed fireman appeared at the door and listened to my hastily explained request, just as I completed my explanation for a second time, slower this time so he could understand what it was I required, the fire alarm went off. The fireman said, "Sorry, gotta go, call the Coast Guard", and slammed the door. As I hot-footed it back to the Police Station I cursed myself all the way for not thinking of the obvious. The Coast Guard Station was less than a mile away, right across the river from where we were docked. Back at the police station, the Desk Sergeant called the Coast Guard for me, and after they said they’d be right over, I high-tailed it back to the boat.
The situation had not improved in the fifteen or twenty minutes I’d been gone. Don was still working the hand pump, but was now nearly knee-deep in water. He had shut off the engine as the water rose around it, but the electric bilge pump was still going. I told Don that the Coast Guard was on its way, grabbed a bucket and started bailing. As Don and I bent to our tasks, we both strained to hear the Coast Guard cutter coming to our rescue. If we could stay afloat long enough for them to get a pump aboard, we might be able to ground our boat out in shallow water somewhere. As the minutes ticked by, and our arms got more and more tired, the water continued to rise. Finally it became clear that our efforts would be in vain, the Coast Guard wasn’t going to make it in time; we weren’t going to be saved. With only a couple of inches of freeboard showing, we abandoned ship. As we sat on the wharf in the quiet darkness, listening to the soft bubbling and gurgling of the water, we finally heard the starting engines of the Coast Guard cutter echo from the other side of the river. Our hopes soared at the sound, only to be dashed seconds later as water swept over the side of the boat and it settled to the bottom of the harbour.
The Coast Guard arrived a couple of minutes later to find just a few feet of mast and the top of the cabin protruding from the water. They surveyed the scene and told us there was nothing they could do now, they’d be back in a few hours when the tide was down. As they disappeared into the night, we made our way over to the last remaining boat and climbed aboard. Just as we were settling in, trying to get comfortable on the bare wood of the mattressless bunks, a shout came from the wharf. It was a town cop, checking to see if anyone had drowned. We stepped out of the cabin to show him we were all right. Seeing us wearing nothing but wet jeans, he suggested it might be a good idea if we came up to the Station to warm up and dry out. So, for the third time tonight, I made my way to the Portsmith Police Station.
At the station, the Desk Sergeant rummaged among some used clothing kept on hand for their less fortunate visitors, which I guess now applied to us, and came up with a couple of shirts and a selection of shoes for us to try on. I found a nice pair of penny loafers that fit OK; Don, with his size thirteen feet, had a little more trouble and had to settle for a pair of black wingtips. Once we were more or less suitably outfitted, we were led down a corridor and shown our room for the night, the drunk tank! Luckily it had been a quiet Sunday night and we were the only guests. We stretched out on the plastic-covered bunks, trying hard to ignore the glare of the always-on hundred-watt light bulb in the middle of the ceiling, and made an attempt to get some shut-eye. Just before I fell asleep I heard Don say, "What the Hell happened? Please tell me this is all just a bad dream".
I woke up the next morning in a condition probably familiar to most people who have had the misfortune to spend the night in a drunk tank: feeling lousy and hoping that the events that had brought us here had been nothing more than a bad dream. But the truth all too quickly came rushing back; Don and I had indeed spent the night as guests of the Portsmith Police Department. I worried for a few seconds that whoever was now on duty would think that we were a couple of winos instead of just unfortunate victims of circumstance who needed a warm place to spend the night. I was relieved to see that the cell door was still open, and we walked out without setting off any alarms. After thanking our hosts for the accommodations we headed for the waterfront just as the sun was rising.
Back at the wharf our predicament was starting to attract some attention. The tide was falling and more of the boat was showing; as daylight increased and waterfront workers arrived, a crowd started to gather. People from neighbouring boats showed up with various items they had found floating around the dock and we were offered help from all quarters. Don wanted to check out the bottom of the boat but found his diving gear covered in a foul mixture of diesel fuel and engine oil. A member of the crowd said he had gear he could lend us and was back in minutes with a complete SCUBA outfit.
After making a survey of the hull, Don reported that it appeared to have several broken planks and that the harbour floor appeared to be covered with pointed posts. This caused one of the observers to recall that about a year previously the City had started to tear down the wharf, then abruptly abandoned the job. A building had been removed, and the posts it stood on were pulled out by a crane. Some of them had broken off and the stumps had been left sticking up out of the mud. Last night’s tide was the lowest of the month, dropping just far enough to set us down on the remainder of these posts. Don’s boat was used mainly for diving and salvage work; the deck was covered with protective steel plates, it was equipped with a heavy-duty winch with several hundred feet of steel cable, it had a steel mast and boom and a big diesel engine. All this extra weight sitting on these posts had cracked some of the planks and, as the tide rose again, the boat filled with water.
Now we knew what had caused our problem, but what could we do about it? Don went back in the water to saw off the post tops and patch the most obvious holes. By now the tide was nearly all the way down and the Coast Guard had returned. They put a gas-powered pump aboard and within minutes we were floating freely again. Their plan was to tow us across to the Maine side of the river where there were two shipyards. One was the Portsmith Naval Yard where the first U.S. Navy submarine was built in 1917 and the first American nuclear sub was launched in 1957; our destination was a commercial shipyard right next door to the Navy yard. As we headed across the harbour it quickly became apparent that Don’s patch job had been incomplete; water was coming in at a rate that the pump could just barely keep up with. Halfway across, the pump began to sputter; we were able to keep it going but at a slower speed and now the water began to gain on us. By the time we neared the Maine shore, we were once again settling low and the floorboards were awash. Then the pump quit altogether.
The shipyard had a large cradle that they rolled into the water, you floated your boat in over it and they hauled you up into the yard. Our problem now was that we might be too low in the water to clear the cradle. We were sinking lower by the second and in serious danger of floundering in deep water only a few yards from safety. After some frantic manoeuvring, we scraped our keel over the bar, got into position and for the second time that day, sank to the bottom: only this time we had settled safely onto the cradle.
With the boat hauled out of the water we were now able to assess the damage. The interior of the boat and all its contents were covered in an oily slime. The engine needed to be taken apart and all its parts flushed and checked for damage and the batteries and electrical system tested and replaced if necessary. Taking a good look at the bottom, we saw that there were more broken and cracked planks than we had realised. Dwayne, the yard’s head carpenter, recommended replacing all the damaged planks but Don said he couldn’t afford that, he’d just cover the holes with plywood patches and have the repairs done back in Nova Scotia. Upon hearing we were from N.S. Dwayne asked if we happened to know a place called Brier Island and a fellow by the name of Raymond Robicheau. It turned out that Dwayne and his friend James spent their summer vacations sailing up and down the coast and a few years previous had run into engine trouble crossing the Bay of Fundy. They made it to Westport where Dad had helped them out by letting them make phone calls, finding the required engine parts and lending his truck to pick up those parts.
Now it was Dwayne’s opportunity to repay the favour; he said there was no way he would let us leave with patches on the hull, he’d do a proper job and replace the planks himself at no charge. He also arranged free accommodations for us. The yard owner had built a cosy little apartment on a barge when his wife had kicked him out of the house the previous summer. Luckily for us, she had recently taken him back and the barge was now vacant. With our basic shelter taken care of, we got to work on the boat.
First we stripped out everything that was removable, all clothes and bedding went to the laundromat where hot water and copious amounts of detergent took out most of the oil. Then we steam-cleaned the interior and left all the doors, windows and hatches open to dry things out. When the engine was disassembled it was discovered that the head had warped, the result of hot metal submerging in cold water. The yard owner drove it seventy miles to a shop that could grind it flat again, waited several hours for the work to be done, and delivered it back to us; no charge. Dwayne’s friend James worked at the Navy Yard and he took our two heavy-duty batteries in to drain, flush and recharge them. He also managed to find some "surplus" electrical cable to replace our battery straps that had been corroded away by the reaction of electricity to salt water.
While this was going on Dwayne was repairing the damage to the bottom. Because he could only work on it in his spare time, it was going rather slowly. This was partly due to the fact that it was a time-consuming job; the planks had to be chiselled out and removed, new ones cut to fit, seams caulked and the new wood painted. But it was also going slow because Dwayne suffered from Sleep Apnea; if he relaxed for more than a few seconds, he would fall asleep. After twice discovering him sitting under the boat fast asleep with his hammer and chisel in his hands, I started to keep an eye on him and if he dozed off, I would bang on the hull to wake him up.
After five days of cleaning up, drying out, taking things apart and putting them back together again, we were finally ready to head home. At the last minute it was discovered that the alternator wasn’t working, this meant our batteries weren’t charging, so if we shut the engine off, we might not be able to start it again. Don came up with a simple solution; we just wouldn’t stop until we were home!
We tentatively made our way north, hanging close to the coast in case any undiscovered problems arose. By the time we started across the Bay of Fundy from Grand Manan Island we were feeling pretty confident in our repair work and arrived safely back in Westport with no further mishaps.
Even though we weren’t thrilled about the reason for our extended stay, the people we met in Maine and New Hampshire were terrific! They brought us meals, invited us to their homes, worked for free, gave us supplies and equipment, drove us places; in short, did everything that they could to help us out. The U.S. Government wasn’t quite so hospitable however. About a month after arriving home, Don got a letter informing him that he was being charged with leaving the country without clearing customs and had been fined twelve hundred dollars. He replied that we HAD cleared customs and our departure was only delayed due to an improperly demolished wharf. This, plus the fact that there were no warning signs on the wharf and no warnings from the Government officials who had twice visited us at the wharf, seemed to provide a good basis for a suit for damages. A few weeks later a letter arrived advising him that the charges had been dropped and the fine cancelled.