The Search Starts

A Whitehall, a Wherry, a Cape Cod Dory, any of these designs would work as my dream boat. With today’s hectic pace of life, I wanted simplicity and tranquility. I did not relish the thought of paying for gas or diesel or owning a boat that would separate me from my family by capitalizing my time.
Then while combing the Internet for leads, I saw Doug Hylan’s design of the Beach Pea Peapod built by the Landing School in Kennebunkport, Maine. While I liked the wine-glass stern of the Whitehall, the double-ended Peapod was pure magnetism; I had to have one. Fiberglass, epoxy, wood, it did not matter the design is what captured my desire. The first place for me to search for the perfect boat was the bastion of wooden boat building, Maine. I attended the Maine Boat Builders Show in Portland at the Portland Company Marine Complex with my pockets bulging with “Wanted Peapod” cards and unmatched enthusiasm. I took a quick cruise around the show and to my dismay not a single Peapod to look at. I spoke to a couple of builders who were happy to build one for about $1,000.00 per foot. I politely said that I was in the market for a used Peapod. They kept my card and said if they came across one in their travels, they'd give me a call. My hopes started to dim. Then I made my way past the Hinckley Picnic Boat and several Downeast-style boats to the upstairs part of the show. One of the builders told me that a book vendor upstairs sold a DVD “Peapods of the Maine Coast” produced by Juliet Bennet. Bennet was an apprentice at The Atlantic Challenge in Rockland, Maine. I picked up the DVD and toured the booths of mostly marine supply vendors. As I wandered along I noticed a friend of mine, Jim Wallis, of Ocean Marketing. He was working the show and I told him of my search. I think his exact words were, “Good luck.” As we talked, Thomas J. Hill a boat builder and designer from Burlington, Vermont stopped by. I mentioned to him my search for a used Peapod and he said, “You have to go to Brooklin, Maine.” I said, “What do you have to do, just go to Brooklin and get out of the car?” Hill said, “That should work.” With my hopes rekindled, I had lunch and started the plans for a trip to Brooklin in April.
I envisioned that in Brooklin in every other house's front yard contained a Peapod for sale. The trip up was great and my wife Marie and I rolled into town close to lunchtime. Brooklin is no more than a wide spot in the road where Bay Road becomes Reach Road and Naskeag Road breaks off toward the water. The epicenter of Brooklin aside from all of the boat builders and boat yards is the General Store.
In typical tourist fashion, I strolled into the General Store it had uneven time-worn floors, a small counter on the left near the cash register with three stools and a bank of coolers on the right with soda and beer. I sheepishly asked if there was a nearby place that had waterfront dining (I don’t know why I asked such a question since we live on the shore in Connecticut and can get our fill of such places, but this was Maine). As the words left my mouth, I couldn't reel them in and I knew I was in trouble. The woman behind the counter politely said, “No we don’t,” and continued her preparations for the lunch rush. At the counter, eating her lunch, sat an older woman who piped up and said, “The fish chowder here is very good!” She occupied the middle stool. She continued, “I’ll move over, sit down.” The store employee said that it was self service, so we wandered over, went behind the counter, and helped ourselves to the chowder, which smelled superb. We started talking to the woman seated next to us. I told her of my quest for a Peapod, and she said, “You’ve got to go down to the Brooklin Boat Yard, then visit Jimmy Steele; he's sick, got bone cancer you know, don't know if he's building anymore, then go see Eric Dow, and Doug Hylan down on Benjamin River Road." She gave us directions, “Brooklin Boat Yard is on the left just down Reach Road a piece, and Benjamin River Road is past that after you go over the bridge. To get to Jimmy Steele’s shop you go back toward Blue Hill, he’s on the left near the speed limit sign, about a telephone pole’s length past it. You’ll see his shop.” We chatted a while about what she and her husband did for a living and the fact that she used to live in Blue Hill. I told her that my family had friends who used to live there; she remembered their name, Fred and Isabel Davis. The plan was to scout around some on Friday and hit the rest of the builders on Saturday. Our lunch friend informed us that the boat yard and builder’s shops are closed on Saturdays. Boat yards closed on Saturdays in the springtime was a new one for me. If a Connecticut boatyard tried that, the owner'd be swinging from the nearest travel lift. As we finished our chowder, the crew from Atlantic Boat Company (the builders of Duffy and BHM commercial boats) filed in for lunch and the smell of the fish chowder gave way to the unmistakable smell of fiberglass and resin. One of the workers paying for his lunch wore a paint and fiberglass splattered Soundings hat. Marie and I cracked a smile(my dad Scott, Jack Turner and Billy Morgan started Soundings in 1962). We paid, thanked our fish chowder friend, and headed out to search for my boat.

The first stop, Brooklin Boat Yard, is located in an idyllic setting on Center Harbor on Eggemoggin Reach, home to some of the best cruising Maine has to offer. I parked the car and wandered into the yard. I felt at home in boatyards because I used to accompany my dad when he sold ad space for Soundings up and down the East Coast. I asked one of the yard workers if he knew of any used Peapods for sale. He sent us to the office to talk to Frank Hull, Vice President of the yard. Frank’s office is perched on top of the main shop and commands a view of the harbor and all of its moorings. Frank said he had some Peapods in the small-boat shed. He mentioned that the owners paid storage and rarely used their boats. He continued that the owners were not thrilled paying storage fees for boats that spent the majority of their time in the shed. Frank gave me the owners’ phone numbers and said, “give it a shot, you never know.” He walked us over to the shed located on a pier. It was filled with Beetle Cats and a few Peapods. One boat with a varnished mahogany sheer, varnished thwarts and gunwales caught my eye. The gray painted interior, with the exception of years of bird droppings looked to be in good shape as did the hull. Frank said it was built by Jimmy Steele in town. The boat had a post-it note taped to it that read Matt Camp. As we left the yard, I did not hold out much hope that one of these owners would want to part with their boat. Boat owners are funny that way. Many an owner would just a soon let their boat crumble away in their yard before they sold it. With hesitation, I dialed Matt Camp’s number and left him a detailed message; I did not expect a call back. To my surprise he called back and said that the Peapod belonged to his grandmother Alidea who used it as a tender to her Concordia yawl, Thistledown. I peppered him with a list of questions I jotted down earlier: Does it have a trailer? Does it have oars and oarlocks? Does it have a name? He said, “Give me a couple of days to think about it. Steve White has been telling me to unload it.” “That sounds fair enough,” I said.

Next we made a stop at Eric Dow’s shop on Reach Road. He was not currently building Peapods in the plank on frame tradition. Dow’s Peapod is a fiberglass version of the Deer Isle Peapod of the 1900’s. His boats are nicely crafted, but I told him that I was looking for a used wooden model( I'd been bitten hard by seeing the wooden version minutes earlier). He asked if I made it to Jimmy Steele's shop yet and I said, "he was on my list." Since we were on the west side of town, a visit to Doug Hylan’s shop D.N. Hylan & Associates was next. We pulled into Hylan’s yard and I was aware that I was burning daylight, as everyone was closed on Saturday. The shed door was open so in I went. Having seen Doug on the Peapods of the Maine Coast DVD, I knew what he looked like. He came over and asked if he could help in any way. I told him of my mission and handed him my "Wanted Peapod" flyer. He asked if I spoke to Jimmy Steele yet. I said I planned on going to his shop. Doug walked over to a 1970’s vintage wall phone and dialed a number and handed the phone to me without saying anything. I awkwardly grabbed the receiver. Doug said, “Jimmy Steele.” Jimmy Steele answered the phone and I explained that I was at Doug Hylan’s and told him of my search for a used Peapod. He said he did not know of any right now. I asked if would be alright if I stopped by to talk to him about my search and he told me to come on over to his shop and he'd meet me there. I thanked Doug and I turned on my heel and headed to visit another of the characters of the Peapods of the Maine Coast DVD. The running around from boatyard to boat builder did not bother me, after all, visiting the Maine coast in early spring talking about wooden boats and before the tourist influx; it was pure joy.

Jimmy Steele’s shop was indeed a telephone pole’s length past the speed limit sign, as our lunch friend described. No sign adorned the front of the shop. The door was open so I waltzed in and there Jim was working on a cabinet of some sort. The shop was about twenty by thirty feet and had a large colorful mural of a Peapod on the face of the loft. I introduced myself and told him about my quest for a used Peapod and that I saw his segment in the Peapod DVD. He chuckled at his film debut and his celebrity. We talked about boats for a while and he showed me his collection of antique-style engines, some of which he built. I conveyed the story of Matt Camp's boat at the boat yard. Jim said that he sold two boats to Matt's grandmother Alidea. The first Peapod Jim built her was lost in a hurricane and the insurance company paid to have a new one built. The second one was used at the time Jim sold it to her. I told Jim at the end of our chat that I would be honored to own one of his boats. He was flattered. It was hard to believe someone so vibrant had bone cancer and only about a year to live. He said that I ought to check with Brion Rieff over on Flye Point Road.

So Marie and I headed off to Brion's boat shop located down a dirt drive with, I swear potholes/washouts that came close to swallowing our car. His shop was a large shed with an office attached to the right. I walked into the office and asked for Brion. He was working on a large wooden sailboat. He came into the office which was strewn with boat plans, sawdust, empty coffee cups, old newspapers and boating publications, everything you would want in a boat builder's office. Brion said that he hadn't built any Peapods lately, but he knew of a guy, oddly enough, in Watch Hill, Rhode Island that had a Peapod that he might want to sell. Brion found the guy's phone number and gave it to me. We talked about Jim Steele and his illness. Brion said he hadn't seen Jim in a while and he asked me how he was. I told him that Jim talked about starting a boat in the fall with the help of a friend, but that was it. He was mostly tinkering with his model engines. I thanked Brion and went out to the car. Marie and I were worn out at this point so we headed for the General Store.

We grabbed a six pack of Geary's beer from the general store and headed to the end of Naskeag Road to celebrate the day. After a walk on the beach, we headed back to The Brooklin Inn to get ready for dinner. The owner of the inn Chip Angell served us dinner and we struck up a conversation. I told him of my mission and our day crashing around boatyards and he said, "I'd love to have a Peapod." My heart sank. What if he called Frank at the boat yard and snagged one of the Peapods I marked as my own? A bottle of wine later and a great conversation with Chip who, come to find out, used to run tug boats for Moran up the Connecticut River. I told him, as a kid I spend many summer days at my friend Richard Gibbon's house in Middle Haddam and we used to ring a huge bell when the tugs came up river and they answered back with their horn( Ironically, the house used to be owned by Fred and Isabelle Davis who retired to Blue Hill, ME). After dinner we went downstairs to Chip's Irish Pub, the only one in town. it is a cozy pub with a dart board and a wood stove and was just the ticket to end our day. http://www.brooklininn.com/

In the morning, my wife and I wandered back down the coast to Connecticut. I eagerly(more like nervously) awaited the call from Matt Camp. I got discouraged after three days and even more depressed when a week eclipsed. In the meantime, I called the other numbers that Frank gave me, not one of them returned the call. I went back to work on Monday and researched Peapods on the Internet. There wasn't much out there. I got more depressed and then my wife called me and said that she received a message from Matt Camp on her phone and he wanted me to call him that afternoon. I called immediately. He said, "I've decided to sell you the boat." My smile almost split my face; I tried to act cool and said( knowing that I was prepared to pay any sum), "how much do you want for the boat?" Matt said $3,250. I said, "SOLD!" I wrote the check May 2nd. He said, "send me a check and I'll call to let Frank know that you are the new owner." The deal was done; she was mine at last. I named her Thistle because she was the tender to Matt's grandmother's boat Thistledown. The name honors my Scottish lineage. I now owned the perfect boat.

I sent Jimmy Steele a letter and a picture of the boat after some renovations. He sent a letter back saying that it was the 93rd boat that he built in 1981. He said that he built quite a few more than that but the Coast Guard did not start requiring him to number them until several years after he started building Peapods.