The way Calvin Beal, Jr. remembers things, Osmond Beal was right to be steamed.
It all went down around 1980, as best as Calvin can recall. He’s 79 now, and, as he says, “It’s been a while.” But the gist of the story is that Colby Young and his little brothers, the twins Arvin and Arvid, started approaching boatbuilders on Beals Island in Maine. The Youngs had a proposition for them.
A bunch of builders with the last name Beal were well-known among the island’s 700 or so residents. Willis Beal, Osmond Beal, Wayne Beal, Clinton Beal and Calvin himself were members of a big, knotty family tree grown from shop-floor sawdust, with a lot of the islanders having helped their fathers and uncles and cousins and friends build wooden boats since they were little kids. By 1980, the Beals Island builders were renowned for being master craftsmen of lobstering boats. They were, in virtually every sense, a family with a culture all their own.
“If someone ran short of lumber, or if they needed to borrow a tool or fasteners or anything,
