Captain: John Thayer
Home Port: Lagoon Pond, Martha’s Vineyard Marina
The Name: Kittiwake III. “I do not change the names of boats.”
The Boat: Twenty-six-foot bass boat originally built of cedar on oak by Erford Burt at Burt’s Boatyard in 1952. The boatyard is now Martha’s Vineyard Marina, on the Lagoon [formerly Maciel Marine].
Ivy Ashe
When I took up saltwater fly-fishing in the late 1970s, I was blessed to have some wonderful mentors on the Vineyard. Legends such as Nelson Bryant, Arthur Sylvia, and Bruce Pratt were my teachers and encouraged me to learn all that I could about this newfound passion. Thus I jumped at an opportunity to travel to Florida in 1978 to attend a fly-fishing clinic run by Lefty Kreh.
Kib Bramhall
Captain: Lynne Fraker
Home Port: Lake Tashmoo
The Name: Ena.“She’s named after my grandmother.”
The Boat: Thirty-four-foot Malabar Senior made of mahogany over oak, built by theAlden Design Office in 1957.
Ivy Ashe
Leo Cooper of Stamford, Connecticut, invented the Goo-Goo Eyes plug in the late 1950s to bewitch big striped bass. It worked. On the night of June 16, 1967, Charlie Cinto caught the Massachusetts state record seventy-three-pound striped bass while trolling a blue and white Goo-Goo Eyes Big Daddy at Cuttyhunk with Captain Frank Sabatowski. Charlie recently told me that the way they fished was to back down to a rip, keep the boat in position, and let the plug go back into the strike zone on wire line. “Then hold on! I remember every nerve in my body would be ready.
Kib Bramhall
Since ancient times, maritime signal flags have been hoisted to transmit information between ships at sea.
Someone knew somebody with a boat, and fishing gear wasn’t a problem: In every home on the Vineyard, there’s a closet by the stairs that smells of wet dog and holds tackle, boots, and old copies of The New Yorker.
Brian Cullman
For ten years, Scott DiBiaso has been the captain of Juno, a sixty-five-foot schooner owned by Robert and Melissa Soros and built by Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway in Vineyard Haven.
Jim Miller
If you ask Todd Alexander what it’s like being the Oak Bluffs harbor master, he’ll give you a simple answer: “It’s like being an air traffic controller.”
Geoff Currier
