Weather keeps Westward and Ernestina-Morrissey in port

Mon, 03/02/2015 - 8:00am

If you are like Phil Brooks of Southport, you probably think it a fairly safe bet that the F/V Westward, still moored in Boothbay Harbor, isn’t going anywhere. Or at least not anywhere intentionally.

In January, when the Westward slipped its shackles for the second time and went aground near Wotton’s, the word from the Coast Guard, Harbormaster Nick Upham and owner James Sheehy was that the Westward would soon be heading to Portland.

Six weeks later, the Westward is still floating in Boothbay Harbor. But, once again, it appears the old fishing vessel’s departure is just around the corner.

On Feb. 27, Upham said he had originally expected the Westward to be moved by Feb. 1, but the extremely stormy February weather foiled any plans to relocate the vessel.

“As much as I want to have it gone, the weather hasn’t been conducive to moving it anywhere,” Upham said.

Sheehy said by phone on Friday that he is finalizing plans for the Westward’s move and expects to have a plan in place by next week. “Call me mid-week,” Sheehy said. “And we can arrange to have you come out and take a picture as she leaves the harbor.”

The Westward is currently attached to a Boothbay Harbor Shipyard mooring and has been secure since its escape in January, Shipyard Manager Erik Graves said on Friday.

Graves said he has been assured by Sheehy that the Westward will be on its way out of the harbor soon.

“We’ve been waiting for the weather to break,” Graves said. “Sheehy is definitely more motivated than ever before and he definitely does have a berth in Portland.”

And it isn’t only the Westward that has been held up by the weather. The schooner Ernestina-Morrissey, which was scheduled to arrive at the shipyard in December for a $6,000,000 restoration, is still waiting in New Bedford, Massachusetts for its trip north to Boothbay Harbor.

“We have had two months of waiting for a decent window, and now that there is one, the Cape Cod Canal is iced in,” Graves said.

Graves said the Ernestina-Morrissey will have to wait until the canal is once again navigable for the gentle tow the old wooden vessel requires.

“It has be to be really calm conditions for moving the (Ernestina-Morrissey). It is going to be a very slow and careful tow that hugs the coast.”