Clearing away at Lincoln Street
Rockland — Among those moving their projects out of Lincoln Street Center for Arts and Education as the nonprofit center approaches its June 30th end is George Sayer, a boatbuilder and woodworker who has enjoyed the ability to spread his work around a corner of the former school's basement. As a tag sale in the gym was going on June 23, Sayer was in the process of packing up his equipment and lumber and other odds and ends.
"I just looked up and saw those masts up there, something else I have to find room for," he said.
For the past four years — maybe five — Sayer has been ensconced in what was the music room when the building was the city's junior high school. The whole bottom floor was the shop area when it was a high school, he said. The space allowed him to spread his various woodworking machines around the room, a setup to be envied by any home woodshopper.
"Now I have to fit what I had in 35-by-27 feet into a 22-by-22 garage," he said.
One thing he will not have to fit is the major product of his sojourn at Lincoln Street, an 18-and-a-half-foot strip-planked rowing shell with a sliding seat. That has already made it out of the building … barely.
"We just got it out the two doors," he said.
The shell will make its racing debut late this summer during the annual Short Ships Regatta, put on by the Apprenticeshop and scheduled for the second weekend of September. Thus far, Sayer has raced as a fixed-seat rower.
"I always come in second to last, so I'm hoping the sliding seat makes a difference," he said.
Courier Publications' A&E Editor Dagney C. Ernest can be reached at 207-594-4401 or dernest@courierpublicationsllc.com.
