An aerial image of the restored Wood Island Lifesaving Station. Shining Star is tied up at the dock. Photo by Dave Seavey
Fall 2023
By Jack Farrell
I bought my first sailboat in 1982. That 17-foot O’Day Day Sailer was the perfect platform for learning how to sail, allowing me to quickly gain experience from my many mistakes with minimal consequence. Every weekend that first summer was spent sailing around Pepperrell Cove and the ledges beyond Wood Island outside of Kittery Point. Saturdays and Sundays, I’d step the mast in the parking lot at Frisbee’s Wharf and launch down the steep ramp, no matter what the tide. At high tide, the ramp surface was slippery from sea growth but allowed the boat to slide off the trailer with ease. At low tide, I had to back truck and trailer 100 feet or so down the paved ramp and out across the mud to find enough water to float her free. The truck needed new rear wheel bearings by November that year. Another lesson learned.
In those days, the crew generally consisted of my intrepid wife and my brother Tom. A few times a month, Catboat Bob (in those pre-catboat days he was known as “Lumpy”) would come down from the mountains where he tended sheep and built woodstoves with his first wife (herself also a sailor), for a day’s sail on salt water. In those days, Mrs. Crabbie sailed a very nice Peapod out of the Cove, but was yet only a passing acquaintance.
With the little sloop stepped and rigged, the crew and I would run up to Frisbee’s Store for sandwiches and beer before heading out across the Cove. In those days, in a last remnant of the blue laws left over from Prohibition, the State of Maine restricted alcohol sales on Sunday morning. The problem was that Frisbee’s Store closed at noon. So, we would slip in at 11:55 to peruse the sandwich display. As the clock struck noon, we would grab the sandwiches and a six pack of beer, and head for the old cash register, where Frank Frisbee would ring us up with a grin, in full compliance with Maine law at one minute past noon – his last sale of the day.
Before we got the courage and skill to venture further out in the Day Sailer, a favorite stop close to the Cove was the abandoned lifesaving station on Wood Island and its cobble beach on the ocean side. The little sloop was easily grounded on the smooth stones with centerboard and rudder raised. The place was seldom frequented and was a great place to swim and explore, especially the old station.
Built in 1908 and abandoned in 1948, the structure still stood straight and true in the early 1980s in spite of the decades of relentless pounding by the waves, rain and snow. Inside, the floors and walls were encrusted with guano. Some of the planks and joists were split and rotted, but it was still possible to explore the whole building – with some considerable care. Those old government buildings were built of the best timber available, southern yellow pine and Douglas fir, and Wood Island Station had stood the test of time.
A few decades later Wood Island and the remains of the Station, still mostly standing, were acquired by the Town of Kittery, Maine. There followed an all-too-familiar, small-town political fracas as a group headed by Sam Reid, now president of the Wood Island Lifesaving Station Association, sought to lease the property in order to restore the building as a museum to the Lifesaving Service. Some in town government resisted, but Sam and his group persevered, eventually raising and investing over $5 million to establish a non-profit organization to restore the building and improve the property. The result is a tribute to Sam’s work and that of the team he assembled and inspired – including civic and maritime heritage-minded donors, carpenters, boatbuilders, marine contractors, systems experts, plasterers, masons, and even the Maine National Guard, which assembled troops and equipment for site work and other improvements over two annual deployments camping at nearby Fort Foster. And most of all, it’s a tribute to the brave men of the Lifesaving Service whose motto was, “you have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.”
The nearly completed project includes an authentic period restoration of the station and its attached boathouse, working marine railway, and a restored lifeboat from the service – the Mervin Roberts, now powered both by oar and electric motor. During those early Day Sailer visits it would have been very hard to imagine the old station coming back to life the way it has. By next year, plans are to offer tours to the public designed to educate visitors about the station itself and the rich maritime heritage of the region.
And speaking of lifesaving and shipwrecks, on a recent Isles of Shoals charter cruise one evening, I spotted a 35-foot sloop near the rocks off Cedar Island. Moving closer, I could see that the boat was aground and in danger of serious damage with the falling tide. The young ladies on the cruise quickly sensed my concern and made it clear that it was fine with them if I wanted to assist. Two older men were with the vessel, one of whom was in the dinghy with a line attached to the stern of the stranded boat. I would have preferred to pull the boat off by the bow, but the situation was clearly getting worse by the minute with the falling tide and rising wind. I backed the Shining Star in close enough to ask if he wanted assistance. He nodded, and with the help of the ladies, we threw him a towline which he attached to his stern line. With a jerk the sloop pivoted on its keel and followed us stern-first into Gosport Harbor. Passing close by a moored skiff, the sloop’s crew tied up to its stern and waved us off. I called the Kittery harbormaster on the VHF. He found the owner’s cell number in his records and connected by phone to confirm that things were stable aboard. A good hand from Star Island was dispatched to offer additional assistance, but none was needed. In the morning, the sloop was gone. I was glad to help, and the experience added to the value of the cruise for the guests.
Just last week we were 10 minutes into a return trip to the mainland from Star Island in the Shining Star when a violent squall overtook us from the southwest. The winds gusted over 60 knots for about 20 minutes, and the seas built to four feet before the tops of the waves were blown to leeward by the gale in a wildly driven spume of white spray. The sea, under a low and blackened sky, turned a strange shade of light green. A particularly strong gust tossed a heavy bench seat across the deck. The eight guests aboard and I were silent amid such terrifying beauty as the big boat soldiered along to the west at her usual 12 knots. And then came the lightning. For about 10 minutes we were surrounded by strikes and immediate cracks of thunder so loud as to dull the sound of the engine, waves and wind. I will admit that the lightning was frightening. And just as suddenly as the storm appeared, the wind and lightning abated, and the thunderclaps receded into the distance. When we landed at the dock in Portsmouth the sun was shining. One of the guests handed me $50 on his way off the boat. “You saved my life,” he said. I knew that all I had done was to drive the boat as I usually do, but he insisted that I keep the money just the same.
Meanwhile out at Star Island, the unofficial capital of the Isles of Shoals, all talk this week is of the looming Hurricane Lee, slowly wandering more or less northward out of the steamy Caribbean. By the time you read this it will be known whether the dire warnings from some outlets for severe weather on our coast were accurate or mere fodder for television viewers in need of a good story. Nonetheless, precautions are underway as I write this – including hauling of small boats and most of the float dock system. Final decisions will be made with tomorrow’s updated forecast regarding cancellation of the last big guest weekend of the season and the annual Gosport sailboat race. Conditions for severe storms are now more part of life in this late summer season than they ever were, and if Hurricane Lee fails to strike, there will surely be another that will.
Jack was the manager at Star Island for many years. He currently manages major construction and utility projects there and provides all-season boat service to the island (average 250 trips per year) for luggage, food, employees, supplies and guests. He also runs Seacoast Maritime Charters, LLC providing year-round private charter boat service and marine logistics to the general public, now in the Shining Star. He still enjoys cruising in his classic Ted Hood sloop, Aloft, and teaching skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
