Category: Working Boats

Joey,
Thank you for publishing my painting of the Alice S. Wentworth.  I just finished a painting of F/V Superior, a Gloucester Dragger and I thought you might want to see it too.
My mother’s family were commercial fishermen.  They emigrated from Charlevoix, MI to in 1910 and helped begin the gillnet fishery in Gloucester with the Lafonds, Widermans, Tysvers, Arnolds, etc. Grandpa was Capt. John A. Dahlmer and he held an commercial license to operate ships in any waters and was a charter member of the Master Mariners Assn..  He operated steamers and fishing boats on the Great Lakes before moving to Gloucester.  Over the years, he owned all or a part of a number of Gloucester boats.  I have painted two of them.  My first painting was of his "Margared D", named for and christened by my mother in Dunkirk, NY in 1909.  Attached is another of grandpa’s boats, the "Superior" a 120′ western-rigged dragger launched in 1932.  Her keel was the last laid down by Arthur Story in his Essex yard. In 1934 they added a whaleback bow (the first seen in Gloucester) which is evidenced in the painting.  That raised fore-section offered better protection when the crew worked on deck in foul weather and it was a feature soon adopted by many Gloucester fishing vessels.
My painting shows "Superior" entering Gloucester Harbor.  She has passed Ten Pound Island, Rocky Neck and the Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory and is turning in to dock at her berth at the Gloucester Machine Shop pier-now Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center.  The idea came from a photo of her taken in 1933 or 1934.  She operated our of Gloucester and Cape May, NJ as a seiner at times but, mostly as a western-rigged dragger and was a high-liner many years Redfishing. 
She was taken by the U.S. Navy in 1942 shortly after Pearl Harbor and grandfather was given $1 each year for her use. The Navy used her to transport gasoline, oil and supplies to weather stations along the coasts of Newfoundland and Greenland.  Returned by the Navy in 1945, she was sold after grandpa’s death.  When grandpa was not in the pilot house she was skippered by my uncles; the captains Ronald, Eber, Lawrence, John or George Dahlmer
Bill Dahlmer Hubbard
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