Henry Dodge: Dockmaster Extraordinary 

by John Dean

1992

How lucky to have grown up from the age of two in Douglas Manor. In those days we always had three Manor boats-beautifully maintained by Henry Dodge, the ever patient and long suffering dock master nonpareil.

We learned a lot watching Henry work. Looking back, the most outstanding thing was how much he would accomplish without ever seeming to hurry. He would arrive well in advance of the season, driving his car with the rear seat removed to make room for paint and tools, and returning home each evening to Sheepshead Bay.

First, he would erect the canoe racks (space for a dozen) and then place the rental lockers in their summer location (painting them first, of course). Then he would give all the wood on the dock a coat of creosote. Then he would chip, red lead, and paint the steel girders underpinning the dock. Then the steel railings, the flag pole, and several other flag poles around town for a little extra income.  

After that the exciting put-getting ready for the season the two motor launches and three row boats. One launch was for low tide-shoal draft with an outboard motor. The other had a "make and break" inboard. We watched as he replaced planks as necessary, caulking the seams and applying "Baltimore copper" bottom paint (I can still smell it!). AU boats had coved rubbing strakes with rope fendering-renewed each year, of course. And the motors. They needed more TLC (not to mention cussing) than modern motors. Henry did enrich our vocabularies, too. But he could strip the motors down and lat them back together and make 'em work.

His more appreciative audiences were rewarded with learning how to splice; to make up a proper mooring; how to row, turning the wrist down at the end of each stroke to give a little extra dig of power and feathering the blades for the return stroke (saving energy).

We learned about putting "blue claws" in shed- ding pens and transferring the shedders to save them from their cannibalistic sisters and brothers, and for Henry's supper. How to skin an eel. How to tie a clove hitch.

My first real boat was a sailing canoe. Henry taught me how to patch a rip in the canvas hull covering with Jeffreys Marine Glue and a hot iron. It worked, but I've never progressed to learning how to fiberglass properly. Two years later some of our fathers were cajoled into buying Cape Cod Nirnblets at the boat show- special price of $3 24 including sails, mooring, swimming anchor with 100 feet of yacht marina, monkey rail and cockpit cover, delivery and launching. No sales tax. There were already two or three in the bay and thus began a fleet that mushroomed to thirty boats. Douglaston entered the national championships after a couple of years and took first place and either third or fourth three years running.

Thus a lifelong addiction developed.