Built in 1928 by Gray Boats in Thomaston, ME, and currently named Anna Mary after our first grandchild (we have five now), our 32-foot single screw classic motorboat was designed by the noted mid-coast Maine designer and builder Albert E. Condon. She is ‘Maine’ through and through; her design is called a ‘Lobster Cruiser,’ incorporating some design elements that are characteristic of working lobster fishing boats of the Maine coast. We aren’t sure of her original name, but until some years ago she was known as Tuva, and under her most recent owner, Tollie. She is powered by a Ford Lehman 120-hp six-cylinder diesel of 1970s vintage.
With five grandkids, two of them grandsons and the other three granddaughters, the question arose when re-naming the boat as to how we could be fair to all of them? We realized that we didn’t have a big enough transom to represent all their names, so we simply decided to name the boat after our first grandchild and leave it at that.
I haven’t always owned wooden boats, but I prefer them, and when I first saw Anna Mary, something about her tugged at the heartstrings; she reminded me of the boats that my grandfather used to build and own. And, for some reason, in powerboats, I like the roominess and style of flush-deck cruisers. This odyssey began about six years ago when my 1930 Alden gaff yawl was destroyed in February in a storm on land in a Fall River, MA, boatyard due to the yard manager’s incompetence. The insurer paid the bill, but now I needed another boat.
Almost all boat purchases begin with a love affair; after my Alden yawl was destroyed, mine was with a 30-foot flush deck cruiser named Scout down in Deltaville, VA. My wife Denise and I drove down to visit the boat for sale, but after looking her over, had to sadly abandon plans to purchase her. She had been designed as a small motorsailer and then reconfigured, and she had a small diesel engine of less than 50-hp and a top speed of six knots in flat water. There was no way, I realized, to bring her home except on a trailer, and that was simply not an option given the distance from Deltaville to Rhode Island. Also, navigating the Chesapeake, Delaware Bay, and especially the 100-plus nautical miles of exposed east coast of New Jersey in an underpowered boat was simply not going to happen.
But then I saw another listing that seemed to fit the bill—a slightly larger, heavier boat with a 120-hp diesel for sale up in Sedgwick, ME, a little bit closer than Deltaville, but in the opposite direction. It took a six-hour drive to Maine (differing from a nine-hour drive to Deltaville) to visit her, and it was a case of love at first sight. Yes, it might be fair to say that we ‘dated’ a couple of times before I purchased her. On the second visit, in nearby Blue Hill, a big black bear ran across the road in front of our car and ambled on its way. That’s one of the neat things about mid-coast Maine, in addition to its emptiness; you always know that you aren’t someplace else.
In late May of this year, after she was removed from her winter storage shed and launched by the boatbuilders at Hylan and Brown who had been her caretakers for many years, two friends and I drove up to Maine to pilot her down to Rhode Island to her new home in Bristol. It took four days and more than 260 nautical miles, stopping for the night each night, first in Stonington, ME, then Portland, then Hingham, MA, and finally a late-night arrival in Bristol, RI, her new home waters.
Amenities include a cozy galley (sink, icebox, stove), head, and holding tanks for wastewater and freshwater. Reliably powered by a 120-hp Lehman diesel, with recently upgraded electronics (chartplotter, VHF). She can sleep two in the enclosed cabin V-berths and two more in the (enclosable) house and has a head. Fuel tanks on either side carry 80 gallons of diesel (40 each) for 80 hours of cruising at an average of eight knots.
Anna Mary is now on her mooring and my plan is to run a little charter service with her, taking six passengers around the harbor and upper Narragansett Bay during the summer. These short 90-minute trips are intended to be relaxing tours of the sights and points of interest in the area, viewed from a graceful antique boat, originating at the Bristol Town Dock and, for the time being, ending there. We will also have hour-long sunset cruises. We are calling our enterprise Bristol Classic Cruises and have secured the domain, which is a great start, but it is only the beginning. We have much work to do.
By Capt. Michael L. Martel