The Jonesport Shipyard

Way Downeast

by Mike Crowe

Sailing north, approaching the eastern most point in the U.S. is the last shipyard before the one at the U.S. Canada border at Eastport. The Jonesport Shipyard is a full service shipyard for commercial and pleasure vessels with deep roots in the area and in boat building.

Jonesport Shipyard owner/operators Sune and Patricia Noreen started their business 26 years ago. They have rebuilt wood lobster boats, yachts, fiberglass boats of all kinds, repaired boats damaged at sea that were hauled in for an emergency fix, large trawlers with a small leak or a big engine that needed to be changed yesterday. Their yard was built literally on the foundations of the noted Bertram E Frost yard. That yard was one of the many that had occupied the community for generations back to when boats were built outdoors on the beach.

The Noreen’s story begins before their shipyard business in Jonesport and they speak fondly of their arrival downeast in 1972. Sune recalled driving east to Lubec where he was going to study boat building and being thrilled at how wild the region was. This reaction was from a young man who had grown up in Haines, Alaska and had just driven across the U.S. with his long time friend and wife Particia. It was an adventure. They built a cabin in the woods and while Sune built boats at the Lubec boat school Patricia drove to Bangor to study at the Maine State Ballet affiliate the Thomas School of Dance.

The boat school had a coop arrangement with boatyards. In the summer Sune worked at Southwest Boatyard. He met Howland Stoddard at that time and Stoddard asked him if he wanted to build a schooner. Sune said sure and Stoddard sent him to see Bert Frost in Jonesport. Bert was the son of Will Frost. Will was the legendary master builder who designed the transitional vessel between the lobster sloop and the modern powered lobster boat. Frost understood what enabled a boat to go through the water easily and what it took to make them do it quickly. So much so that during prohibition successful rumrunners ran Frost boats to leave the revenuers on the horizon.

Sune became an apprentice at Bert Frost’s shop. The schooner they built was the Dei Gracia, now known as the Rachel B. Jackson. Sune emphasized the importance of apprenticeship in training to be a boat builder. He said, “You can’t learn all of it in a boat school. Seeing a master builder work, learning the many techniques, the wealth of passed on knowledge happens in a working shop as an apprentice.” After Bert got sick things slowed down at the Frost shop and Sune and Patricia, after four years downeast, went back to Alaska.

Both he and Patricia had grown up in Alaska. Sune, born in Sweden, came to Alaska as a child His parents were farmers in rural Sweden and homesteaders on the Alaskan coast. Catching, cleaning and smoking fish on the wharf, growing food, and building their own home were assumed ways of life. As was a six-year old Sune having his own rowboat to knock around in with his friends.

Patricia’s father was a scientist with the Bureau of Mines who had brought his family to Alaska for his work and the outdoor opportunities. Before working for the Bureau of Mines, he had built and run several gold mines and done extensive mining exploration in Montana, Nevada and Washington state. Patricia recalled stories of the bricks or bars of gold he would stack under the bed in their house before using them to meet all of the expenses of the mine.

They found a place to rent in Juneau, opened a shipyard, called it the Noreen Shipwright Company and began to ride the economic wave created in part by the construction of the Alaskan Pipeline They repaired 58' seiners and cranked out the boats everyone seemed to want. There was a lot of fish, a lot of work, a lot of money and a relatively short season to make it in.

“We came back east to our downeast Maine cabin in the winters,” said Patricia Kindling fires in the cabin kept their interest in downeast alive. In 1985 they saw a for sale sign on the Frost yard and by 1988 they were both ready to come back to Maine after 12 years in Alaska. The owner wanted the property to remain a boat yard and accepted their lower (strike ‘much’) offer over a developer’s.

The first thing they did after moving back was to buy the first hydraulic boat hauler in the region. They wanted a shipyard, but the hauler would start cash flow and services, and that it did. Sune said groups of people would gather to see the hauler pluck a boat out of the water without dragging a wooden cradle around and weighting it down with stone to sink it.

The Noreens lived in a travel trailer, built a shower, locker room and office and were on their way. The old boat shop needed a new roof and the bulging walls had to be drawn in. They hauled boats, did repairs and caught another mini wave in the popularity of glassing over wood hulls in the transition period between wood and fiberglass small boat construction.

“Our first job was a boat for Barna Norton. He wanted a boat built off a 36’ Earnest Libby plug with Downeast teak (pressure treated) topsides,” said Sune.

The yard now builds and repairs wood and fiberglass, does electronics and changes out engines, handling vessels from the 15 1/2' Jonesport peapod to fishing trawlers and yachts. They seasonally haul commercial and pleasure boats to 46'and store about 50 of them. Sune estimated he’s hauled more than 4,000 boats at the shipyard.

The Noreen’s on site quarters include their home and a room and showers for maritime travelers. The Jonesport Shipyard is also a boat brokerage. Many of the boats they broker are those they have hauled and stored over the years.

Some people come in to re-rig. Fishermen bring in leaking boats for repair, etc. “I take a lot of pride in being able to help repair fishing boats for fishermen. I’m hoping to be able to pass all this on,” said Sune. The marine supply store at the shipyard supplies commercial and pleasure boaters and the general public.

Their new 2005 shop is maybe 200’ from the beach, but its light years from building a wood boat outdoors on the beach in a late November blow. The heated concrete slab floor, air filtration system, 2 bays, insulated building, overhead travel lift (strike ‘overhead travel lift), lighting, and high tech gear make it a 21st century shop 12 months of the year.

They still build small wood boats. They acquired a 90 year-old traditional Jonesport wood peapod from an elderly Jonesport couple who had lobstered with it. The shipyard made a plug from the peapod and now builds fiberglass peapods. “It’s a serious, time tested, wooden rowing and sailing boat traditionally used in downeast Maine for lobstering, carrying people and supplies,” said Sune.

Over the decades the shipyard has expanded it’s business. “We also cater to people cruising the coast who moor their boats, shower, do laundry, sometimes stay over and sail on. Some come in for repairs or storage. The more adventurous sail beyond Bar Harbor and they’re a different kind of sailor, Patricia said. Some think it’s all rocks and fog down here,” she said.