It started in 1983 when Peter Kass laid down the wooden keel for his first wooden lobster boat at the boat yard later known as John’s Bay Boats along Maine’s Poorhouse Cove Road. Since then, some 70 wooden boats, mostly lobster boats, have slid down the John’s Bay Boats launching ramp.

Many of those were built from a Kass-designed half model and featured what Kass referred to as “the standard setup.”  The design included such features as varnished raised panel cupboards and drawers in the wheelhouse.

Kass will also be the owner of the final boat being built at John’s Bay Boats.  “It will be the last boat we build here,” said Andy Dickens, a boatbuilder at the yard for the past 18 years. “He’ll take it on his own personal adventures. That’s his plan, to cruise Maine in the summer. It’s the same model as the last boat we built.”

The vessel will be a little smaller than the wooden lobster boats that are normally built at John’s Bay Boats, measuring 34’ x 11’ with a 350-hp Cummins 6.7L engine.  The hull is being planked with 1-inch cedar, which is thinner than lobster boats normally get, and fastened to steam bent oak frames with 1 ¾” # 12 bronze screws. The keel is made up of 4 ½-inch white oak. There will be a fully enclosed wheelhouse with bunks and a head down below. 

While Peter Kass is cruising the Maine coast, John’s Bay Boats will still be open for repairs, even though new boat construction ceases. “It will still be John’s Bay Boats company,” says Dickens. “Our plan is to stick around and keep doing maintenance and repair work.  Boats are getting older, always more work to be done on them.”

That works out fine for the crew at John’s Bay Boats.  Dickens says the best thing about building working boats for working fishermen is “how nice it’s been to be connected to the customers.  It’s nice to have someone can appreciate the work you are putting into it, because they spend so much time on their boat.”

Once the current boat is completed, “we’ll be looking for big repair jobs,” Dickens says.