The Rangeley Boat

Of Boats and Flies

I was almost 19 before I had that adventure with boats that most coastal brats have at an earlier age: having the use of a stable, able, and adventurous small craft to create mayhem. It was a seventeen-foot Rangeley Boat. The Rangeley Boat could handle almost any challenge an adventurous 19-year-old could throw at it, and for a brief period in the summer of 1965 I had one. That summer I was out on the lake anytime there wasn’t a torrential downpour or interference from work.

Designed for use on the lakes of Maine, the Rangeley could handle a week’s worth of camping supplies and numerous teenagers, or, powered by an outboard, be your ticket to exploration. I still recall its graceful bow, the green paint on the hull, and the carefully varnished interior. The one I used had a square transom with a rusty old outboard motor mounted for trips across the lake to town.

But this story is not just about that type of boat or my adventures in it. It’s also about Old Woodsman fly dope. Ahhh…what a combination: the fly dope and the boat.

For those younger than fifty, the current fly dope with a similar name is probably effective but does not contain the same active ingredients. Said active ingredients could leave you reeking in the woods so severely that if you collapsed, the odor would guide the rescue party to your corpse. Also, no self-respecting fly wanted to settle on you. But then, that was the point. Old Woodsman probably contained ample amounts of pine tar, botanical oils, and who knows what else. For sure, “in the day,” everyone in the north woods had a bottle, and they hoped that it would never leak in their car. The smell persisted. I mean that it really persisted. And that gets us back to the boat, coincidentally.

The Boat and The Persistence Of Odor

Early one spring, I was perusing the annual Maine Boatbuilders’ Show in Portland, where I had a booth to sell my boat-related carvings- quarter boards, transom banners, and the like. The show had been a positive experience, and the bank account was feeling flush. So I decided to take advantage of a slow period around lunch to wander away from my booth to “walk the show”.

Then I noticed a pungent odor wafting towards me from a back corner of the show. It seemed familiar. Curious, I walked down the row towards it. In front of me appeared a beautifully restored Rangley Boat. The varnish was bright, the lines beautiful, and the memories savory. Around it was a group of students from one of the many boatbuilding programs that dot the coast of Maine.

Walking up to them, I inquired about the boat and its history. They right away tried to explain the odor: “We don’t know why it smells that way. The smell stayed through all our restoration work. No matter what method of removal we tried. We figured it must have been some sort of preservation technique.”

The reek was pure Old Woodsman. Over the boat’s long lifespan, gallons must have been spilled in it because no amount of restoration would ever remove all that reek. I told them about Old Woodsman and assured them that the smell could be sold as a positive feature of the restoration. After all, the new owner would never have to use any bug dope to keep black flies, skeeters, or any other critter away.

Of course, friends, spouses, and others might not be so interested in zipping around the lake and smelling like an open gallon jug of bug spray.