Reverse gears have come a long way ahead in the last century. In 1925, a red-painted, single-cylinder Lathrop engine crouched in the cabin of our first sloop. Its cylinder was the size of a nail keg and its ignition system was a primitive make-and-break rig that ran on a battery controlled by a knife switch. It had no transmission whatever and ran just as well backward as forward. To start it, my father closed the knife switch, rocked the massive flywheel to and fro to gain momentum and yanked it up against the compression. If she fired just before the piston reached dead center, she started backward; if after, she banged along on her way forward. We never used the reverse on purpose. We cut the switch to leeward of our mooring and let her range up to it just as we did under sail.
When I was about 16, I often went lobstering and gill netting with a seasoned fisherman who had a similar engine, but he had his reverse gear under better control. He could always swing the flywheel fast enough to get by dead center and start forward. To reverse, he opened the switch, and as the flywheel took its last slow revolution, he closed the switch so she fired backward. He could do it almost every time.
In the late 30’s, Goudy and Stevens built a pretty Alden schooner. Her professional skipper took her out in the Damariscotta River with two young men from the yard as crew. Coming back, the skipper took the wheel to show the young fellows how a gentleman’s yacht should be handled. He approached the float briskly, threw the transmission into reverse, and nothing whatever happened. Ahead was the coal wharf – big, solid and dirty. Imminent disaster was averted only someone for reasons unknown had run a heavy line between the wharves. The schooner bounded off it, hit the coal wharf, and suffered little more than cosmetic damage.
After the war, I was anchored in North Haven Thorofare with a cruising party. The lovely schooner MISTRAL came in under power, waved cheerfully to us, and headed in for Brown’s wharf. I watched her slide by the float, saw her masts moving over the buildings on the wharf, heard her engine race and a plaintive voice, “The backin’ gear don’t work.” Her masts stopped as she fetched up in the mud.
In the early 50’s on my first day as mate on BALMY DAYS, I was washing down decks. NELLIE G. II came in to the float on her regular Squirrel Island morning run, a routine procedure for skipper and mate. She slid quickly and confidently alongside the float as usual. Well before she stopped, the mate stepped out on the float with the stern line. The skipper threw her into reverse, the engine growled, but there was not the usual swirl under her stern. NELLIE continued at her business-like pace, took the stern line out of the hands of the astonished mate, continued under the wharf ahead of her, clipped off the flag staff and, two-by-two, the elegant mahogany rail stanchions, and fetched up with a solid jolt against a steamer trunk standing in front of the pilot house.
But now these things don’t happen. Transmissions are designed by expert engineers, maintained by skillful mechanics, operated by hydraulics and controlled by computer. One can have complete confidence in modern reverse gear. For instance, watch the finish of the trap-hauling contest at the Boothbay Harbor Fishermen’s Festival. A contestant, having hauled, baited and re-set a string of traps at breathless pace, returns to the float projecting from the parking lot at absolutely full throttle. The timekeeper holds his watch. The crowd cheers, blows horns, waves flags. Ten tons of lobsterboat driven by hundreds of horsepower at 20 knots drenches the float with a fan of bow wave. REVERSE! The motor roars. Foam swirls and boils around the stern. The crew steps off, ties up, and races up to the timekeeper. Of course the reverse gear works. It always does, nowadays.
I notice that the police keep a line clear of spectators in the parking lot right ahead of where the contestants come in.