|
“I’ll never
forget the day,” laughs wife Lorelei. “He came home from Alan’s
and said, ‘Lee, you’ll never believe it—the damn Ark’s
back.’” Dugas had decided to buy the Connie from Lowell
and get him to transform her into a classic trunk-cabin cruiser with a
large saloon and pilothouse. Dugas envisioned himself having a ball, cruising
the coast of Maine in a true lobsteryacht. The tarp was removed from the
Connie, and she was hauled back across town to Royal River, where
for the next four years, when Lowell wasn’t working on other, more
pressing projects, he chipped away at the one he’d started a decade
earlier.
On July 29, 1997, Carroll
Lowell died; he was just 59 years old. Ironically, the lawsuit that had
gradually rounded his shoulders and softened his speech over the years
was settled in his favor just weeks before he passed away. Even Keel had
reopened as well, reuniting father and sons in a joint effort: building
a plug for a new fiberglass lobsterboat. “He seemed so relieved
and happy then,” Lorelei remembers. “He called me one day
and just held the phone toward the shop and told me to listen. And I says,
‘Carroll….Carroll, I know where ya are. Ya sittin’ on
ya rear end on a chair in the corner, and those boys ah buildin’
the boat!’”
Last year the Connie
O’Connor was finally launched at Yarmouth. Oddly enough, as
she slid into the green depths of the Royal River to the cheers of hundreds,
she again entangled her fortunes with those of her builder. After Lowell’s
death Dugas lost interest in the old cruiser and put her up for sale.
Within months Don and Carolann Streinz of New Hartford, Connecticut, bought
her. She was just what they wanted: a real Lowell cruiser, albeit an unfinished
one. Soon the Connie made the crosstown trek yet again, this time
back to Even Keel, now run by Jamie and Joe. Splicing the boat into a
busy schedule, they used the skills their father had taught them to finish
the job he’d started. It was not easy, having to handle tools and
materials their father had hand-made and read the notes he’d left
behind to facilitate the tasks he’d meant to perform.
But here’s the
beautiful part. Soon after the final papers and contracts were signed—they
were the only papers and contracts ever signed in connection with the
building of the Connie O’Connor, by the way—somebody
noted a rather phenomenal detail: It was Carroll Lowell’s birthday.
The Streinzes promptly
changed the name of their new lobsteryacht to the Carroll L, of
course. And then they sailed happily off into the Pine Tree sunset.
Even Keel Marine
Specialties Phone: (207) 846-4878. www.lowellbrothers.com.
Next page >
Lowell Brothers Photo Gallery > Page 1,
2, 3, 4
|
