Leader of the (Ice) Pack

With relative frequency, Cape Codder receives emails and calls from owners/ former owners who want to tell us their Codder story. We wanted to share a particularly awesome one…
 
“Just stumbled across your website and was very surprised and pleased to see that Cape Codder boats are again being made. I noticed on your website the testimonies that you've heard from owners about the boat's performance and durability. Well I could tell you a few.
 
My dad was a bullraker in Bristol, RI. First, back in the late ‘50s to early ‘60s then again from ‘79 to ‘85 when an accident on his 60 ft dragger nearly took his life.
 
He purchased a used ‘78 Cape Codder 19 in about the Summer of 1980, when he was quahogging full time, and outfitted it for bullraking. 
 
As you know Winter on New England waters can be a very inhospitable place to be working. The Winters of ‘80 and ‘81 on Narragansett Bay were a perfect example. At least one, if not both of those Winters, the Bay froze over. Nearly all of Bristol harbor to Hog Island and all of the upper bay except the channels was frozen over. The Coast Guard boat from Bristol had cut through only half of the harbor and allowed the ice to drift out toward the channel when the tide went out but left the head of the harbor and the docks, where there were dozens of full time shellfishermen, still locked in and unable to go to work.
 
My Dad, who at the time had a 225 Mercury on the Cape Codder, launched at the State Street dock as he always did and proceeded to not only break a path through the approx. 4" thick ice to the now open area of the harbor, a distance of a couple hundred feet, but then cut a path around the docks and halfway across the other side of the harbor which allowed all of the diggers to get out to work and earn a living. He did things like this more than once. Several times during those Winters the other quahoggers, many with flat-bottom skiffs, would wait for him to launch and cut a path to open water so they could get to work. While not exactly recommended use, he always had confidence in the boat's toughness and solid construction and it never failed him.
 
I could tell you of other examples of the boats faithful service to him and to my brother who later purchased it from him.
 
My dad is now in Heaven and my sister and I are in the process of rebuilding and refurbishing the boat.
 
Thanks for seeing and appreciating the value of this wonderful craft.”
 
Joseph – Rhode Island