BEALS ISLAND, Maine -- Since it was settled in 1770, residents of this island have made their living from the sea.
Nearly every man and boy hauls lobster traps. Some dig clams or dive for sea urchins. Some drag for mussels, scallops, and quahogs. Others scrape periwinkles off barnacle-encrusted ledges.
Old-timers recall many summer nights spent chasing after schools of herring and trapping them in coves and weirs. Their wives and daughters packed the silvery fish at now-defunct sardine canneries.
By age 6, most children here are taking a turn at the helm of their father's fishing boat. Standing on a tote, or a 5-gallon bucket, they peek out the side of the pilothouse and practice steering a straight line. They're learning to row, too. Many would happily trade a Tonka truck for a toy boat slapped together from pine scraps and string picked up from the floor of a boat shop.
On Beals Island, however, that deep love of the sea and boats of all sizes extends far beyond the joys of childhood.
Lobsterman Brian Smith, 40, whose home is on adjacent Great Wass Island, is one of many residents who have taken toy boat building to an entirely new level over the years. In the winter, on days when it's too cold or stormy to fish, Smith spends his time constructing intricate models of fishing boats in his woodworking shop, housed in a modified plastic greenhouse in front of his blue single-story home overlooking Alley's Bay. He's built half a dozen so far, measuring up to 52 inches long.
''If I'd been born 50 years ago, I'd have been a boat builder," said Smith, a descendant of island settler Mainwaring Beal Jr.
Smith spent much of his childhood watching fishing boats being built in local shops. The old-time wooden-boat builders and their distinctive designs and construction methods made a big impression. ''I get the lines out of my head. It's all by eye," he said of his model work.
It's all part of the seafaring tradition on Beals Island and in the Jonesport area, which are known for commercial boat design and the construction of wooden lobster boats. ''This is where most lobster boats were designed and where lobster boat racing began," Smith said proudly.
Smith's creations will be among those on display April 17, when several hundred islanders and marine enthusiasts from all over New England gather for the Sixth Annual Model Boat Show at the Beals Island Elementary School gym. Presented by the Beals Historical Society, the show will feature dozens of finely detailed models of working boats and pleasure craft. Sloops, schooners, seiners, sardine carriers, , lobster boats, pea pods, and dories -- some built recently, others decades ago -- will all be represented.
SEAFARING TRADITIONS For other views of Maine model builders and their environs, see a photo gallery at explorenewengland.com/travel.
The model boat show is becoming a rite of spring and sets the stage for the island's World's Fastest Model RC Lobster Boat Races, which will be held on July 1 at the Perio Point Lobster Pound just east of the bridge linking Beals Island with Jonesport on the mainland. Only radio-controlled, battery-powered model boats compete. Those races precede the Moosabec World's Fastest Lobster Boat Races, held on the Fourth of July in Moosabec Reach between Beals Island and Jonesport, in which fishermen compete in diesel- and gas-powered working boats. Moosabec is part of Maine's official lobster-boat racing circuit.
Smith and his son, Gordon, 16, make models of the Beals Island-Jonesport area's signature working boats as a hobby and a wintertime moneymaking enterprise. Each replica takes several hundred hours to build. The Smiths' most elaborate creation so far is a 1930s ''torpedo" boat that entailed steaming some of the longer planks in a bathtub to create the curved stern, combing, and windshield.
All the Smiths' models can be raced. They carry 7.2-volt batteries and are operated by remote control from the shore.
''You can go from the mantel to the ocean and back again," Smith said.
Ernest Libby Jr., 70, has nearly completed a scale model replica of the wooden lobster boat he designed and which was widely used in the Maine lobster industry starting in the 1960s. He plans to display it at the show.
Libby said he built the replica much as he would construct any full-size wooden vessel.
''You have to work at it quite hard. A lot of figuring," Libby said in his dimly lighted workshop. ''Reilly Beal, one of the oldest boat builders, said, 'Anyone can make a mistake, but it takes a good man to get out of it.' "
Libby has built more than 100 boats in his career, but this is his first model. He has worked on it for three years, in between helping his four sons turn out working fiberglass boats and tending his 800 lobster traps in his own boat, the My Belle. He sees the replica as a means to record his life's work and a chapter in local history.
''The people who built wooden boats are dying off. In a few years, there are not going to be any left," he reflected. ''If I build a few of these things, they'll have them around."
Willis Beal, 62, another respected island boat designer and builder, had the same idea when he started collecting model boats years ago. In his Nautical Room, a mini marine museum started in his grown daughters' former bedroom, exact scale models of torpedo-stern lobster boats grace handsome display cases tucked under the eaves.
Local boat builder Will Frost is credited with developing the style in the 1930s. The torpedo boats, which sliced like a knife through the water, were used for lobster fishing year-round and raced summers on Moosabec Reach.
Kneeling in his stocking feet, Beal patiently explained the origin and unique features of each model. A clam skiff, gaff-rigged sloop, Grand Banks dory, and four-masted schooners are among the diverse craft displayed in the chapel-like room. He points to a child's play boat, recounting how his father carved it from a cedar chunk salvaged from a fallen utility pole. A dinghy fashioned from pink construction paper and Scotch tape by his grandson Kelton when he was 7 adds a different personal note to the extensive collection.
Beal's first effort at model-making is also on view.
''All I had was a hunting knife, handsaw, plane, chisel, and hand drill," he recalled, referring to a model lobster boat he made when he was 13. He steamed the craft's timbers and top rails in a kettle on a gas stove. ''I knew what I wanted to do long before I did it. I had an eye for boats."
Like Smith and Libby, Beal sees the models -- new or old -- as a way to preserve local history. He'll exhibit many from his own collection at the April 17 show.
''It brings back great memories to me of the way things used to be," he said.
Contact Letitia Baldwin, style editor at the Bangor Daily News, at jbhlb@prexar.com. 
