“Air Alley” & Foolish Pleasure: Jonesport, Winter Harbor
and Pemaquid
by Fishermen’s Voice Staff
Alley’s Foolish Pleasure immediately after it righted itself, indicated by the wash to the left of the stern. The boat is at a right angle to the course. Note the heads of the two passengers seated in the port aft quarter. © Photo by Sam Murfitt
Galen Alley’s lobster boat race in Jonesport on July 4th nearly ended with his Foolish Pleasure capsizing. But that race was just the beginning of the latest round of rumors and speculation that have emerged from events in the wake of Alley’s repeated attempts to break his own last speed record.
Some spectators saw Alley’s Foolish Pleasure run up to 75 MPH and in a split second veere to starboard, get thrown up on its port beam end to where it nearly capsized before righting itself in a cloud of gray engine smoke and spray. That threw the switch on the rumor mills that ran long after the race day ended. Alley said of the rumors, “boy they really like the rumors. They had me doing all kinds of things including alcohol.” All four of the enforcement agencies that would have been engaged if there were alcohol involved said they had no knowledge of alcohol being involved and that there was no breathalizer test taken, as had been rumored.
Three at Harpswell. © Photo by Sam Murfitt
Alley said a couple of things went wrong that day. Just before he reached that part of the course, a jet-ski illegally went across the course laying down a wake. “At 75 MPH it doesn’t take much to cause problems,” he said. At the start of the race, Alley switched off his radio, he couldn’t hear it if it was on, and hooked up his harness. The race had already started when the jet-ski went across the course at the finish line end of the course.
His plan for the race was to run three quarter’s of the race at 65 MPH, which he estimates on the tachometer at 6200 RPMs and then open up the engine to get to 75 MPH. He said, “The jet-ski had improperly already crossed the race course, the race had started and I didn’t see the swell until I got to it.” The average lobster boat race runs for a few minutes. Alley’s Foolish Pleasure does it in about 20 seconds.
Foolish Pleasure does not have a built down hull, it is flat across the bottom in the aft section. It gets up and planes on that section. Alley said that at those speeds one aft quarter will be bumped up and be knocked back down by the opposite quarter bumping off the water.
However, Alley also had an extra person on board in the July 4th race. That person was sitting on the deck up against the aft port wash rail.
When Foolish Pleasure hit the first wake from the jet-ski, it started bouncing. It hit the second wake at an angle off to starboard. The boat was airborne heading into the third swell as the bow continued around to starboard. The weight of the passenger at the aft port rail was enough to tilt the hull to port. The port aft quarter hit the third wake first. The impact of the rest of the port side coming down and grabbing the spray rail threw the boat up on its port beam end to where it nearly capsized.
Alley is always in a harness when racing and strapped to the bulkhead where he has an engine kill switch. There was no damage to the boat or the engine. The cloud of smoke was from engine oil forced into the top end when the starboard side tipped up. Alley didn’t do as well. He injured his shoulder and elbow when he was thrown against the bulkhead and the heat exchanger.
The Foolish Pleasure is a light fiberglass boat built from a mold pulled from Alley’s previous boat the Lorna R. The Lorna R was a wooden boat built by Alley’s great grandfather Riley Beal and great uncle Adrian Beal in 1972. Riley Beal was 86 years old when he built the Lorna R and it was the last boat he built. (See Fishermen’s Voice September 1997 for a Riley Beal story.)
The Lorna R was a fast boat at the time she was built, a time when most working lobster boats with a speed of 20 knots were considered fairly fast. Wood boats after soaking up water can be a lot heavier than fiberglass boats, but the wood Lorna R had made a name for herself on the race circuit before her lines were lifted to produce the very light Foolish Pleasure.
About plans for future races, Alley said he has adjustments to make on the boat for more speed. “I need more power. I’m going to show it can reach 80 MPH,” he said.
At Winter Harbor, Foolish Pleasure ran into a problem in it’s first race. The boat slipped out of gear and he lost speed. Alley said that even idling, Foolish Pleasure is moving at 15 knots so he has to prowl around the starting line behind the other boats on the line until the start. After the others go, he goes.
The wind was kicking up swells in Winter Harbor and he was getting swung around. As a result, he said he forgot to attach the bunjie cord he used to hold the gear lever in forward. He ran up to 5,000 RPM where he could just stay ahead waiting to 6,200 RPM and run ahead. But two-thirds of the way down the course the lever slipped into neutral and his speed dropped off.
“At first I thought the engine had failed, but I saw the lever in neutral, threw it in gear and almost caught up,” he said.
In the next race he had a good run in spite of the rough seas. Skipping over swells on the last few feet of the flat aft section, he did 75 MPH.
“The following day in better conditions at Pemaquid, I did 77.4 MPH measured on my GPS, and picked up the $1,000 prize for breaking the speed record,” he said.