“When we started dating,” Kim Nicols, the mother of three young children, said, “the boat was part of the package.” She wasn’t speaking of her husband, Dan’s, kayak, but rather Bill Brown’s pinky schooner SUMMERTIME. That a man would feel such a sense of camaraderie to a boat not belonging to him needs some explanation.
Dan Nicols started crewing on SUMMERTIME in 1988. Since then, he, then Kim, and now their children return to sail at least once a summer and each spring from Barrington, New Hampshire, for the annual grounding out of the boat, or what Brown calls his “beach party.”
The combination of getting together with some of the original SUMMERTIME builders, including 84-year-old George Allen and his muffin-making wife, Georgine, and their daughter and other old crewmembers and friends make the yearly occasion a must-do, no matter how far they have to travel. Brian Wood, who first sailed on SUMMERTIME years ago as a Coast Guard-licensed deckhand, drives each year from Manchester, New Hampshire, with his companion, Ellen Ruggles. They also make a cruise once a summer for pleasure. Jonathan Minott, of Dover-Foxcroft, whose experience with Brown goes back to 1986 and the building of SUMMERTIME, said of his hole-filled sweater, “This job has worn out more than one sweater.”
It’s important to keep the paint scrapings, which contain copper and lead, the two big contaminants, from either getting into the intertidal zone: the area between high and low tide or in the water, though it should be noted that the Material Safety Data Sheet for Brown’s paint does not include lead. This also applies to liquid paint, according to Pamela Parker, Vessel Discharge Coordinator for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Not only is it illegal, Parker said, it is also bad for the environment and any creatures that might ingest it including small children.
“Whenever you scrape paint off, you generate paint waste,” Parker explained. “That paint waste is a pollutant itself and it also has some pretty yucky stuff in it. We always say, the best way [to prepare your boat] is in a boatyard — even if you do it yourself — where they’re set up to do that, where you can get tarps around the boat easily, and you don’t have to work between the tides.” She said boat preparers should carefully collect all the waste, take it home, and dispose of it as “special waste.” Although it is legal to take paint waste to a town dump or transfer station, that is not the best way to handle such waste. She suggested boat preparers either contact a special waste management company or their local transfer station and ask what local waste hauler serves that area.
Brown said he calls the DEP each year before he beaches SUMMERTIME and follows the state’s and the Department’s recommendations.
Asked if this year’s Beach Party accomplished what he’d hoped for, he said, “Yes,” but added that he hadn’t finished quite yet. Working between tides is hard. That’s the downside of working on a beach instead of a boatyard. “We were in a rush to get everything done,” he said. “It seemed the tide came in sooner than usual.”
For more information on how best to prepare a boat for the season or to request a free copy of Maine’s best management practices for marinas and boatyards, contact Pamela Parker at 207-287-7905.
