Strong winds tip over boats in storage at Fall River marina

FALL RIVER – A split tarp and hurricane force winds started the dominos falling Monday afternoon.

Moments later, three big sailboats were on their side in a storage lot at Borden Light Marina.

The fallen included Privateer, a 90-year-old wooden cutter-rigged yawl that Michael Martel restored three years ago, rebuilding it from stem to stern.

“We had 65 to 70 mile an hour gusts here yesterday,” said Michael Lund, who owns the Borden Light Marina. “The tarp opened up. It filled like a sail and blew the boat over.”

That boat, a 35-foot fiberglass sloop, tipped onto the Privateer, which tipped onto the Double Black, another fiberglass cruising sailboat.

Lund was out with a crew Tuesday morning, making things right again.

By 10 a.m. Double Black was fitted into a canvas sling and lifted by a crane to be settled into a boat trailer. It was moved from the storage yard at 52 Ferry St. and around the corner, closer to the repair barn at the marina.

By noon they started on Privateer.

Martel learned about building boats from his grandfather, a builder for Herreshoff Yachts, and learned to sail while still a student at Bishop Connolly High School.

Martel said he built his first boat, a 16-foot Thompson, shortly after he got out of the Coast Guard.

With the Privateer, Martel spent eight years rebuilding the boat, a project that included cutting new oak ribs and steaming them to shape and completely replacing the transom.

In the process, he also wrote a novel with the Privateer as the home of the main character in the book, “Trade Winds Vagabond.”

Except for some damage to the mahogany gunwales running along the side of the boat, the Privateer appeared largely unharmed by its fall. Martel removed the boat’s two wooden masts before he put it up for winter storage.

That boat was also heading for the repair yard, Lund said.

The wind came in from the northwest Monday. Gusts of 45 mph were recorded by Bill Gregg, who operates the website, Fall River Weather. Gregg made the recording from his home on New Boston Road.

There is a multiplier effect for wind moving over the water, especially locally when the wind is from the northwest and it is squeezed, at sea level, by the ridges on either side of the Taunton River.

“It was tough down here yesterday,” Lund said. “We’ll get everything picked up by the end of the day today.”

Email Kevin P. O’Connor at koconnor@heraldnews.com.