Oct 24 2008
How I Got Back Into Ships
First off I grew up on boats - work boats, fishing boats from Gloucester. Both sides of my family were fishermen, with the Scola side owning an old Essex-built dragger named ST. PETER. By the time I was 12, the schooner Adventure had arrived in Gloucester and even though she was from another time, I could easily see the similarities between this grand old lady and my family’s old boat (which was sold in 1986, just shy of 60 years fishing). Less than a year separated the launching of these vessels, yet their methods of fishing were world’s apart.
Later I would become aquainted with the American Eagle and got to sail on her in several races - She was the last schooner built at Gloucester, back in 1930. Amazing that this beautiful vessel was the first dragger my father fished on. She was once owned by my great-uncle Joe Piscatello and his brothers before being restored by Capt. John Foss of Maine.
Fast forward to adulthood and to be honest, I thought I was done with boats and all things maritime. Years of chronic GI problems and then surgery to a degenerative hip has pretty much made anything on the water pretty uncomfortable. Besides my mind was elsewhere…That is until a trip to Virginia’s Historic Triangle got me back thinking about wooden ships, and helped me realize that all that knowledge was still there.
A mid-morning of great conversations with costumed interpreters made me realize why am I re-inventing the wheel? Why don’t I just use what I already know? I also had a bit of luck that the Essex Shipbuilding Museum was looking for help when I got back. I hit the ground running including diving head first into a virtual treasure trove of images and artifacts in the museum archives.
It’s funny what life throws at you - for years I did not think about this stuff and now, I look forward to everyday that I can tell the tales of the shipbuilders of Essex and especially, the harrowing events of the Gloucester fishermen. And so I have to think that maybe my health issues served a purpose - to get me back to what I should have been doing all along…
