If you live anywhere near Beal’s Island or even if you don’t, but make radio-operated model boats, mark your 2008 calendar for the Saturday before July 4th.
Whether you’re a model boat maker or racing observer of any age, it would be almost impossible not to have fun at these races.
This third year of the model boat races, the largest of four yearly fundraisers for the non-profit Beal’s Island Historical Society’s building fund, took place at the tidal lobster pound on Perio Point on a perfect, though cool and blowy, day. The crowd consisted of a good 200 people from babes in arms to rickety seniors, and with every combination between.
Although the judging — “People’s Choice” awards — started at 10 a.m., contestants were still arriving, carrying their models, at 11:15, with chairman Brian Smith making sure the models had numbers and getting all the details. Some models had been made from scratch; others from kits, and some were half scratch-half kit. All were radio-powered and controlled. Kits with radio controls cost about $2,500, according to Liz Faraci, wife of model maker Bill Faraci, of Addison. Only one boat operator, or driver, was a female: Nancy Smith.
Number 19, Francis G., is a sardine carrier Jerry Fernald made from a kit. But, Fernald said, “I totally bastardized it.” He said it was a model of a Bristol Bay, Alaska, fishing boat, which he named after his father who had been a herring seiner. He has been making models since 1995.
Faraci, who entered three models built with his 12-year-old son, Bob, said, “I’ve always had a hankering to build something out of nothing. I love working with my hands” He said his ten-inch-long J.A.K., named for granddaughters Jaylin, Alyssa, and Kaitlyn, took longer to build than the two others, explaining that for the small model he had to wear reading glasses and use magnifying lenses and vises.
David Houghton, from Cherryfield, entered #17: Austin & Barbara, named for his parents, whose ashes he said were scattered where he grew up, in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He made the model half from a kit, half from scratch, said it is still unfinished, and explained, “The arthritis got to me; I’ll have to build larger models.” When he was a boy, he had raced what are called little boats, toy boats, and mini-boats with his grandfather and recalled, “We used to have to run around with a stick and poke them to turn them.” The late Junior Backman used to say much the same about Beal’s Island boys running along shore beside their little boats.
Chairman Smith, of Beal’s, who started building models as a kid, said, “I grew up in a boat shop.” He modeled Lavonne L at a scale of 1/8 of his grandfather’s boat, built in 1954 by Alvin Beal. He entered two other models: Bluebird and Erika Nancy and made all three from scratch. As Houghton walked by Lavonne L, he said to Beal, “You built this? Beautiful job.” Beal had two People’s Choice awards sitting on the model.
Lobster dealer Michael Kirby, of Jonesport, built his model boat, #24, Jacob, six years ago, and said of his nine-year-old son for whom it was named, “He’s been playing with it since he was three.” He also said Jacob had won the Youngest Skipper trophy for two previous years. Of the races, Kirby said, “People have been racing toy boats as long as Beal’s Islanders and people from nearby having been building fishing boats.”
While the judging went on, onlookers purchased and downed grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, crabmeat rolls, and all kinds of homemade desserts, the sale of the food making up the fundraising part of the event.
Kids — boys in one group, girls in a separate one — gathered on the rocks on the edge of the pound, cheering on a few practicing model boats, eager for the races to begin. Most of the adults stood behind the fence up higher. Some women and children sat in folding chairs they’d brought.
At noon, right on time, the races started, and it became clear that racing radio-powered model fishing boats is, to put it delicately, somewhat iffy. The first time the starting horn sounded, some boats fairly skipped across the pound from starting buoy to the buoys they had to round before racing back to the starting ones. (They could start at any of the several starting buoys and round any of the buoys across the pound.) Some boats simply refused to start, breaking the owners’ hearts. The wind blew others off-course. One large model, Brian Smith’s Erika Nancy, started spewing smoke in mid-pound. The pound tender, a barge-like vehicle with an outboard motor and two men on board slowly made its way out to the middle to rescue the smoking boat model to the cheers of the crowd. Smith later reported, “It had burned the floorboards right out of it. The electronic speed control caught fire.”
The increasing wind made controlling the boats difficult to impossible as they tried to line up to race. As Liz Faraci, wife of modelmaker and operator Bill Faraci and mother of twelve-year-old son Bob, watched boat after boat go sideways instead of forward or just stop dead in the water, she said “After working on these boats all year, it’s — believe it or not — heart-breaking when something goes wrong, and the boat just doesn’t go.” In the final race, two boats flipped over.
Bob Faraci won the 12-volt, zero- to-33-inch class. Nancy Smith won the 12-volt, 33-inches-and-over class. John Sawyer won the unlimited volts, zero-to-30-inch-class. Shawn Alley, driving a Libby model finished by Tuddy Kenney, Alley’s grandfather, won the unlimited volts, 30- to-40-inch class. Gordon Smith won the uncontested unlimited 40- to-50-inch class for his scratch-built Flash. Nancy Smith, driving son-in-law Brian Smith’s scratch-built Bluebird, won the unlimited 50- to-60-inch class. Keith Smith drove Brian Smith’s Best-in-Show, People’s Choice award winner, Lavonne L. The Youngest Skipper award went to 6-year-old Tyler Alley.
By 1:30 p.m., races won and stomachs filled, the owners of even those whose model boats hadn’t operated as expected made plans for next year’s competition. The races had grossed $993, according to historical society president Carol Davis, who said the proceeds would be added to the about $11,000 already raised, thanks to previous donations and a Conoco Phillips employee grant of $3,000 to vice president Kenton Feeney towards the $25,000 needed for exhibition buildings. One of buildings will house the society’s 1939 Harold Gower boat, its 1902 Maurice Dow boat, and such fishing equipment and tools as can be stored safely without heat.
If you would like to contact BHS, email Carol Davis at cfdavis44@yahoo.com.