Gene Willard, Senior Captain, Casco Bay Line

by

Jack Reynolds

Gene, who upholds an 8 generation tradition of seagoing Willards, began his 21-year Casco Bay Line career as a 14 year-old deck hand. "I got lucky," Gene said. "When I started they had a rule that you had to be 17 to work on the boats, but I was an old looking 14 year-old---I remained 17 for four years." At 18, Gene earned his skipper's ticket and was promoted to captain.

As a senior captain, he is likely to be in command of any of the line's 5 boats, but the 85-foot Maquoit stands out as the easiest to maneuver and dock. "It's really designed for easy docking. There are three engine control stations on the bridge and a remote station that can be taken anywhere on the boat. There is no bow thruster, but they are more necessary on under-powered vessels. Maquoit's engines deliver all the power you need for easy docking."

Maquoit's carries 400 passengers and 20,000 pounds of cargo with room to spare for a couple of passenger's cars. Gene pointed out a cargo pallet of general cargo that included an open package of paper towels and a carton marked "Live Tropical Fish." "We carry about anything you can imagine---groceries, heifers, horses. Whatever island people need we deliver."

Although fog occasionally slows down Casco Bay Lines schedule, the line has never missed a day's operation since radar was installed in 1976. "We always run in fog and some days I look forward to the challenge of navigating in it. With radar, fog doesn't change my job here in the pilot house, but things get more intensive for crew lookouts."

Many of Gene's 8-generation chain of seafaring ancestors, including a 19th century Casco Bay Line president, feature in the maritime history of Maine. Another, great great grandfather Enoch Graffam Willard, skippered a coastal schooner until he left the sea and went on to found Portland's Willard and Daggett Seafood Company.

Looking over his electronic navigation console, Gene paid tribute to "E.G." Willard and fellow pre-electronic age coastal Maine navigators. "It was all done with courses and times. Buoy to buoy and buoy to dock. The closest thing they had to radar was timing the echo of a whistle blast. They were masters at what they did."

Gene, a Peaks Island native, looks back on his 18-year Casco Bay Line ferry career as the ideal "retirement" job. "Lots of people look at what I do and tell me they would love to have it as a retirement job so I like to think of it as mine."