Maine still has at least one sail-powered lobster boat
Before the 1920s, when combustion engines were first mass produced, lobster boats and other vessels were powered by wind and sails, and the Friendship sloop was the most ingeniously designed boat around. “This boat is representative of what is essentially the start of the lobstering industry,” boat builder and shipwright Tim Clark said Thursday as he stood on the recently rebuilt deck of Blackjack, a Friendship sloop he and others at the Sail, Power and Steam Museum in Rockland have been restoring for the past three years. When “combustion engines came along — by the teens and 1920s — they were basically obsolete,” and the ones left were either left to rot in people’s yards or were converted into yachts, according to Clark, lead builder for the project. “Most of us think of the schooner as the symbol of Maine maritime history, but this (type of boat) has the most interesting and dynamic history,” he said. continue reading the story, click here 11:20
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