Page 3


	Page 3

"How could just you two do that?" I asked Paul.

"We just did it," he answered.

With about a quarter of the building overhanging the stern of the barge, a lobsterman towed it down the river. At first, the Coast Guard at Damariscove Island was unable to help, as lives and property were insufficiently in danger. But when the barge went adrift in the open water off Ocean Point, the Coast Guard rose to the occasion and towed it to safety in Perch Cove in Linekin Bay and, the next day, to the site where it now stands.

In the ensuing winter, ALARM was finished along with two 20' sloops also for Warner. Soon after, the wharf was rebuilt and a beginning made on a substantial marine railway. Warner, increasingly pleased with the quality and price of the Luke boats, contracted for another 37' cutter to be named MARJORIE, and the 40' cutter, ASTRAL. MARJORIE was delivered in 1941, but before ASTRAL was launched, war demanded everyone's attention.




	The framing process of a wooden boat begins with the hull inverted.


	Leaving ASTRAL on the bank and taking as many yachts to store as he could accommodate, Paul took a job as a Navy inspector at the Gamage yard in nearby South Bristol which was building patrol boats to a government contract. When his draft number came up, Luke was declared of more value to the war effort at home than as a soldier, and was deferred.

As the war progressed, he became foreman at the Frank L. Sample yard in Boothbay Harbor, building salvage tugs, and at the war's end he was an expediter for Bath Iron Works, which was building destroyers. He made the transitions from elegant yacht work to heavy wooden tug construction, and then to welded steel destroyers of daunting complexity, without a stagger.

When peace came, Paul moved back to his shop in Linekin Bay and began at once to build one of the most efficient and progressive yacht yards in New England. His remarkable energy and driving commitment to build an excellent boat as quickly and economically as possible in a shoestring shop attracted a crew with the same spirit. These were men who, just back from the war; had beaten into the ground the most formidable military machine the world had ever seen. They felt indomitable, ready to meet any challenge.


	One had just driven a 4 x 4 re-supply truck across Europe to catch up with General Patton and had done it in spite of the enemy, the weather, the terrain, and the land mines. Another had repaired shot-up bombers-planes that had barely fluttered in to a landing. During the war, the men that Paul now hired had gotten used to working with all they had and inventing what they needed to get those planes back in the air doing their jobs, not tomorrow but "right away yesterday." Build a boat? Of course they could build a boat. All they needed was leadership to obtain the contract and to organize the effort. Paul was that leader. The yard became an inspiring place to work.