Good-bye, Double Trouble

Ever seen a lobster boat driving down
the street? The Double Trouble departs
on its way to its new owner.
(photo: Sarah Corson)

Yesterday Bruce Fernald bade farewell to the Double Trouble, the lobster boat named after his twin boys, the boat that was featured in THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS. She served Bruce well for just over twenty years.

When speaking recently with the boat's new owner in Massachusetts, Bruce learned that the new owner had received THE SECRET LIFE OF LOBSTERS as a Christmas present from three separate acquaintances. It's not often that a person purchases a used fishing boat and finds that the boat's entire history is available as a book at Barnes & Noble.

A few days earlier, on December 31st, Bruce's current sternman and his fiance had eloped and gotten married -- aboard the Double Trouble, with Bruce and Barb's blessing. Serving as a matrimonial sanctuary at sea was the boat's final act under Bruce's stewardship. Barb wrote about the wedding and the boat's departure in her column for the newspaper the Working Waterfront.

Construction will soon begin on Bruce's new boat, which he hopes to have finished in time for spring fishing.

It's just hit me that I spent two years of my life aboard the Double Trouble -- two years where nothing stood between me and an icy death at sea but her fiberglass hull. Thanks, boat.