#125 Landing Turbulence

Back in 94 Jimmy bought a slice of the waterfront by the bridge to run his smelting and eeling operations from. He stuck out a dock next to the old cribwork, and the other eelers followed him across the river. Jimmy traded access for material and labor on his dock. Then docks. Then finger piers. Etc.

When the SeaBees gutted the shady old public landing, and created our new bare spot with water hazards, other boatists began asking if they could tie up under the trees at Jimmy’s. He began renting out slips. Now his operation extends 2/3 the way across the river, and Cathance Landing looks like New Meadows, without foam.

Early Docks

Eeler's Paradise

But Jimmy kept in touch with the Town Managers and Codes Enforcement Officers over the years, and his expansions were hardly invisible. At various meetings last year, when the then Harbor Master was forcing us to swallow draconian regulations suitable for Portland or Bar Harbor, he repeatedly quoted federal statutes defying marinas as having more than 14 boats. It turns out that the town ordinance clearly says more than 5 boats and/or a commercial operation a marina makes, and no marinas are permitted. Making Jimmy an outlaw.

After receiving a complaint, the Planning Board decided this was within their jurisdiction, and proceeded to proceed. The fact the Army Corps has jurisdiction over the river, and the Board has no authority to direct the CEO in cases of violation, didn’t stop the bureaucrats from getting petty. Meetings were called and agendas written. A fair crowd turned out for the entertainment, on a – thankfully – mild night, but had to sit through three hours of old business before the issue at hand got dealt. Ah the joys of rigorous agendas.

Preferred method

Not that the show was dull. The developers who are trying to get a site plan for the airfield property accepted were grilled for an hour and a half, the realtor who wants to turn the old Post Office into an office had to endure a reductio ad absurdam about the painted lines in her parking lot, and a couple of builders wanting to shove in a new nine-house subdivision up on the West Branch had to jump through the preliminary hoops. There’s nothing more tedious than micro-management by committee, and our Board seems obliged to belabor the obvious in triplicate. By the time they got to Jimmy we were all grinding our teeth.

Incidentally – if you are following this infrequent commentary, and wonder about the airfield – the bogeymen who are trying to build nine houses around the runway really seem dedicated to maintaining a landing strip up on the hill, and a consortium of pilots are going to lease the field, provide insurance, do maintenance, etc. If you don’t like highend houses in what was open space, it’ll still be a thumb in your eye, but at least we’ll have Cessnas throttling down over our house. By the time the Planning Board had picked them over, my sympathies were entirely with the nits.. er.. builders.

Bowdoinham International

Ex Post Facto

As for the realtor: how anyone can imagine that she’ll have more traffic than the old PO – where there wasn’t an accident for all its years of operation – is beyond me. Then, a fair number of the board members are so new to town they don’t remember a convenient local Post Office, or the board’s complacence about its removal, and they feel it’s their business to worry about everything anyone might do in town. Like try and build a house, or run a business. Some people don’t have enough to do.

The way life should be?

A couple of the board members seemed adamant that Jimmy was a bad actor and should be shut down immediately. To do otherwise would be setting a bad precedent. Forget that there aren’t any moorings available for all the boats at Jimmy’s, or that paying all the owners back would bankrupt him. All those boats by the bridge are simply an eyesore, and they have to go. Nobody asked the new Harbor Master where they’d go. Jimmy is now the Harbor Master.

I’ve been helping add to the confusion. This Spring, Mike, the boy next door, foolishly said he’d like to have a boat, and I said, “Why don’t you build one?” Now he’s just about ready to slap the paint on her. A classy little flatiron with a rowing transom. Mike made the sweetest set of ash oars, and added just the right esthetic touches to the skiff to make her a beauty. She’ll be making a splash next week.

Ready for paint

Luceille Launched

She won’t have to dodge a hydroelectric installation, however. The proposed test run of Alexander Gorlov’s Helicoidal Turbine under the bridge is a wash.

When I heard about a new free-flowing hydro turbine being tested on Vinalhaven, I did a web search and found Professor Gorlov. After an e-mail exchange his engineering aide-de-camp, Jim Sysco, and the professor, came to town to examine the old mill race as a possible second site.

The turbine is slick. Three helical vanes in an open cylindrical array, with each vane an airfoil. Placed in any flowing water the turbine spins up to twice the water speed, regardless of how the water runs through it. Their 3footX3foot prototype develops 1kw of output in any flow over 2.5 feet per second. Unfortunately the tested speed of the Cathance through the old race peaks at about the minimum flow required, and doesn’t hack it most of the tide.

Professor Gorlov is a striking character. A Soviet political emigre who came out with Solzhenitsen and Sacharov, Gorlov took a position teaching engineering at Northeastern. Now he’s designed this elegant hydro turbine and talks about using its clean power to crack water to make hydrogen for fuel cells. It has been proposed that an array of his turbines be positioned in the tremendous tide race under the old Carleton Bridge in Bath, with a hydrogen station athwart the RR tracks on the bridge. Bruce took the visiting engineers down through Chops on his eelboat and we all admired the waters sluicing past Bath.

Out of the dooryard

Heaven

So far Gorlov’s turbine is still in the beta stage. The prototype they floated on Vinalhaven self-destructed under high revs. A beefed up version will be reinstalled this Fall. We daydreamed aloud about Quoddy and Fundy, and a clean-powered future. For right now, though, a helicoidal turbine in the Cathance would only provide enough juice to charge your battery. Electric Toad, anyone?

We’ve been spinning that way already. Last month I invested in a 4-stroke Honda outboard – and I’ll never go back. Being able to have a normal conversation when the Toad is motoring is remarkable. Not spewing oil is even better. And the purring beast has a battery-charging circuit. David the Buzzard came up with a DC amp, and now we are on the way toward electric blues afloat. And you thought your quiet gunkhole was safe from Rock and Roll? Roll over Beethoven.

The way it was

Musicruisin'

The Toad has been rocking and rolling since early May. Yarting on Thursdays, and Musing on Sundays (taking musicians out that is), in addition to waves of highschool classmates, family, and other Summerfolk. This is the year everyone decided to come for a sail. The skipper has done more whistling, and less drawing this time around, and he managed to kill Olympus – so there’s been no Toad log on the web. Maybe next year.

Development and growth may be embracing this hamlet, but the sturgeon are still jumping, the eagles are bullying the ospreys, and the crows heckling all. I’ll tell more the next time we come ashore

Snapper hatchling