At Wayne Beal Boats in Jonesport, Maine, a Wayne Beal 32 lobster boat is being built. “It’s a hard chine 32 for my father,” says Jeremy Beal. “This will probably be his last new one.” It so happens that Jeremy’s father is Wayne Beal who, when not building boats, had been lobstering from a Bruno & Stillman until he sold it this winter.

Beal describes his father’s new boat as “pretty traditional.” That includes an open wheelhouse with a post and probably V-berths forward. Though the construction will be mostly composite, which isn’t so traditional for a Jonesport-built lobster boat. Power for the 32-footer will come from a 500-hp Cummins. Beal says the hoped-for completion date was in time for the Boothbay Lobster Boat Races on June 20. The race has since been canceled.

Last winter, Wayne Beal Boats lengthened a 44 Calvin to 48 feet with a stern extension to carry more lobster traps when the boat’s owner, Mitchell White, is running trawls offshore. This winter, “he’s in to extend out the wheelhouse with an overhang,” says Beal, and have lobster tanks installed under the platform. After a season of fishing with the lengthened hull, Beal says White “likes the addition. She don’t sink her ass in as much, and he gained an average 10 gallons fuel on his normal day hauling. Gained a knot on cruise and stayed the same on wide-open throttle.”

Also in the shop is the Pull N’ Pray, a Wayne Beal 40 lobster boat built in 1998 that caught fire on Long Island. “The injectors cracked or the line cracked and he had a dry exhaust, and it caught off his exhaust,” Beal says.

The fire took everything on the topside of the deck. Below the floor flange the damage wasn’t so bad, except for a couple of spots. One of those was an 8' x 2' 6" long section near the waterline, and there “were a couple of places the size of basketballs.” The bad sections were cut out and filled in with new laminates.

Sitting outside was a Holland 38 lobster and scallop boat from Gouldsboro that is due for a new wheelhouse. “We’ll take the old kit-built house off it and put one of my father’s 36 houses on,” says Beal, adding that the “kit-built house rotted.”