Everything I do in a creative sphere finds itself telling a story. In recent years I've become involved in ceramic sculpting, and nearly all of my work wants to tell a story. These sculptings not only imply a narrative, but I am writing stories bringing these people and historically significant small boats to life. Mademoiselle Fleur published in the Northwoods Anthology by the Conservatory of American Letters, Cap'n Nicked in the Dan River Anthology, 2007, and Lobster Bait,, Pearly's Mermaids, and Romance in a Whitehall Skiff in Messing About in Boats magazine.

All stories and photos Copyright Peter Owens 2004-2009.

Boat Sculptings were recently on display at the Centre Street Gallery of New Bedford, Massachusetts and Yankee Accent of Osterville, MA.

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(at left) Beetle Cat... sold

A true story...

The Wreck of the Frank A. Palmer and Louise B. Crary, Dec 17, 1902

Two huge coal schooners racing to offload in Boston Harbor collided and sank on a frigid night over a century ago.

The Crary smashed into the Frank A. Palmer, but only the Palmer had time to lower its lifeboat... rendered here.

Fifteen men, including crew from both ships were hauled into the lifeboat, and during four cold days, four men froze, and one lept overboard.

In all only ten of the original 21 crew members survived. At one point certain their rescue was a distant hope, they discussed cannibalism...

The true story and records of the wreck can be found at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary web site at NOAA.

The Palmer Lifeboat (sold)

Ceramic Sculpture and Photos by Peter Owens

Cotuit Skiff (sold)

Lovely Lady in a Cotuit Skiff

Kitty Crocker started sailing her Cotuit skiff bare naked not even a year before her husband left her. On this fine July day she beat to windward in West Bay, Osterville, a fifteen knot sea breeze licking up a pert chop and fine spray that cooled her skin as she tacked toward the cut that opened to Nantucket Sound.

Everyone knew about the bare-naked lady in the Cotuit skiff, and many male eyes and binoculars furtively followed her progress from shore. Kitty was 46 years old but could have passed for 35 and from a distance younger still. She kept herself fit sailing her boat nearly every day from April to November.

Kitty braced her foot on the centerboard trunk and squinted into the afternoon sun, her huge sail shuddering from the power of the wind. She wasn’t sure exactly when her husband Bobby decided she wasn’t for him. Maybe it was her gradual tumble into the change of life attended by her growing “weirdness.” Shortly after Bobby’s yacht club buddies started howling hysterically that his wife was sailing bare-bum naked, Bobby left her. In the face of even minor embarrassment, he chose his snotty friends over his wife.

The rest accepted for publication in the Dan River Anthology.

Whitehall Skiff

Romance in a Whitehall Skiff
published in Messing About in Boats, 4-15-06
Cape Cod, 1904--Weather permitting, nurse Lilly Nickerson took her lunch on the beach overlooking Hyannis Harbor, a stone's throw from the Heaven's View Rest Home where she worked. She gazed across the channel and watched her familiar lone shellfisherman heave a bushel barrel of softshell clams onto the gunwale of his skiff, toss an oar out of the way, then lower the clams into the hold.

Moments later the hollow thunk of the tossed oar reached her ear as he stepped into his clam hole to resume digging.

Stabbing his clam fork into the firm sand on the far shore, Bert Peckham got so he counted on her being there and imagined he even knew her. She was as good as a clock, and he allowed himself to daydream about her leaning down and kissing him as he dug. He was a shy man resigned to being single and lonely, but he couldn't stop wishing he knew the young woman who so often seemed to watch him work.

One blustery October day Lilly waved at the clammer across the way. When he waved back, she called out, "Can I buy some of your clams?"

Continued on...

Kingston Lobster Boat

"I ain't the only one. We don't want to spend a lot of time drowning. The water's cold, and when it's time to go, why fight it?" Tony asked.
Curly thought that was one of the dumbest things he'd ever heard, but he held his tongue because he loved to hear his grandfather talk.

"I don't know a man in the fleet who can swim ten foot," Tony said. "It sounds dumb, boy, but it ain't."
Continued on...

Nomans Land Boat (sold)

Rescue My Sweet Darling

Montana Sweet painted her toenails to match the fabric of her red-orange life-guard bathing suit. She knew this would please her boss Kip the next time he massaged her toes down at the boathouse where they kept the Nomans Land boat. Despite her ardent affections for lifeguard captain Kipling Ross, Montana earned her way onto Kip's lifeguard team. She was a powerful swimmer and oarsman, as good as any of the guys, and she was the only girl on the Town of Dennis lifeguard squad except for Marsha Malloy (who was a guard at Dennis Pond where the only hazards were snapping turtles and greenhead flies).

Montana took some ribbing for her name and had stopped counting the number of times guys said, upon learning her name, "Kind of a duck out of water, huh, Montana? Ha, ha." Her mother, Frances, loved the name and had fled back to the Montana mountains where she now lived following a bitter divorce from Andrew Sweet, a brilliant corporate lawyer, Montana's Dad.

When her mom discovered Andrew in bed with his traveling legal secretary, Frances smashed him on the back of the head with a

baseball bat, nearly killing him. She cursed her rich and handsome husband, her lovely seaside summer house, and damp ocean air that flooded her sinuses from June to September. "I was a jerk to ever fall for you," she screamed, Andrew unconscious and spewing blood over the lovely long neck of Annabelle Tartly, soon to be Annie Sweet, the new wife.

Montana, too, was a sucker for tall, lean, muscular, obscenely handsome men with soothing voices and calmly repressed swollen egos. Kip was similar to her father--star athlete, brilliant scholar, BMOC at Williams College, charming, preppy, smooth-talking, confident, a leader of men now bathing in his final summer as Cape Cod's most celebrated lifeguard during an era when being a summer lifeguard was the ultimate in cool. (Continued on...)

New Bedford Whaleboat and Harpooned Calf

Pearly Gates always got the worst crew, the worst whaleboat, the worst harpooner and now he had the damnedest mess he'd ever bloody well seen. He'd heard stories of white whales and the poor luck they brought, but Conway, the stupid fool, drove his harpoon into a white calf whose mother was lurking below.

"I didn't know," Conway whined, smiling just the same.

"You're drunk, damn ye to hell," Pearly grumbled, heaving his oar to move them away from the tail. He may be a calf, but he could bust them to bits with one hard flip of his flukes.

"He always drunk," Micky Burger said brightly.

"She's coming back to et us, ain't she, Mister Gates?" Will Biddle demanded in his frantic

	He'd heard stories of white whales and the poor luck they brought, but Conway, the stupid fool, drove his harpoon into a white calf whose mother was lurking below.
		Whale's revenge

falsetto. "She goin' down to talk ta the devil, and then she's comin' back and gonna et us. Ain't that so, Mister Gates?"

Pearly didn't bother to answer Will Biddle because it didn't do any damned good.

Will was a worrier with a brain the size of a periwinkle. He could think of only one small thing at a time, and it was usually a worry of some sort.

The reason Pearly got the worst of everything was he was the oldest boatsteerer on the ship and way past his prime. He had no business being a boatsteerer on a whaleship. He could drop dead during a chase. He was sixty-eight and looked every minute of it. He felt even older, and every ten minutes or so he had to pee. But Mister Gates had beautiful teeth that he carved himself from ivory of a sperm whale's tooth. On each of his eye teeth, Pearly carved naked mermaids. Continued on...

Mademoiselle Fleur
Published in Northwoods Anthology

So ees very dark and I come to steal my boat. Was Papa's boat, rest his soul, but dat RCMP says, "Pierre Louis (that's me), thees boat ain't belong to you. It belong to the government."

I says, "Git da hell off my boat." and they says it ain't belong to you and they put dat sign up, "Confisqué."

"My papa, hees soul come down from heaven and curse you guy," I yells, so dat RCMP hurry quick wid da sign and tell to me, "You on dis boat tomorrow, go to jail, Pierre Louis."

"Ahhhh," I say and point to papa in da sky, and da RCMP he jump off da boat and cross hees self and kiss da thumb, den wag da finger at me.

Jeez.

So I take da boat and I sail out Saint John after midnight. Everyting I leave. Don't tell no one. I go to U.S.

Big wind dat night. Go like hell. After dat night, nice wind dat. Go good. Smoke Cuban cigar. Very good dis.

I go Fairhaven. Sound good, dat name, hey? Fairhaven. Across da bay ees New Bedford. Good place that. Wild place. Easy get lost. Many outlaw there. Long way to Canada.

Mademoiselle Fleur, she fine boat. Go fast. Papa know dis boat. Work his life keep her good. Like new. Damned good boat. So he don't pay no government. Dey give him to the boat. Give ever-ting after big crash, 1929. Now dey want to steal Papa's boat. No own Mademoiselle Fleur, they say me. RCMP too many lazy. Confisqué, ha! Don't know Pierre Louis.

Nice down here to New Bedford. Warm. Many boat. All up and down da wharf. Big red-top guy call him Sully. "Heah," he yell. I tie up at da wharf and hold money for Sully. He laughs. "We don't take that Canuck shit," he laugh. No many teeth, dis guy. Lots of fight, dis guy. Very strong.

"Pay latuh," Sully say. Big smile, dis guy.

"Who dat Latuh?"

He laugh. Wave me bye-bye and go up da wharf and grab dis pretty girl, she try to run away and she slap him, and Sully he slap dat girl in de mouth. Hard. Ouch.

She young girl, fourteen, fifteen, maybe and she ain't more dan hundred pounds all wet, so I yell Sully.

"Hey, dat girl. She my crew, dat girl."

Continued on...

Lobster Smack, Mademoiselle Fleur

Wianno Senior 

Herreshoff 12.5... 1st Prize, Professional Photography, Barnstable County Fair

Sakonnet River Pulling Boat (sold)