survivor ‘Save Our Unique Leona A.' fund aims to restore last fishing boat built on island By Olya Evanitsky

Have you had a peek under the green tarp next to the Block Island Historical Society? If so, maybe you saw the dilapidated wood of the old boat that's under there, ran your hand over the peeling white, green and red paint of her hull, stole a look at her crumbling pilot house, and marveled at the delicate spider webs woven between her missing planks.

Maybe you breathed in her smell of sea and salt, maybe you imagined yourself on deck, out on the gently swelling ocean, surrounded by the music of waves, the sun hot on your neck and a mighty fish pulling at your arms and back and heart.

You won't have to rely solely on your imagination; the hope is that one day, she will sail again, and you could be on board.

She is the Leona A. — the last fishing boat built on the island — and the Historical Society aims to completely restore the hard-worn boat. A fund for the restoration effort has been established, and potential donors are being implored to "Have a S.O.U.L. — Save Our Unique Leona A." The intent is for the boat to fish again, so she can serve as a living, floating, working symbol of the island's history and traditions, a symbol that visitors and islanders can touch and experience and know.

"The ultimate goal for the boat is to get her back in the water," said Champlin Starr, president of the Historical Society and head of the restoration effort's fund-raising. Starr said he envisions the boat, tied up in New Harbor near Smuggler's Cove, being used for daily educational cruises to teach people what it was like to work the ocean, to show them how to drop a net or set a lobster pot, and to give them the feel of old Block Island. A few thousand dollars separates this dream from reality.

There isn't a lot of solid wood left on the boat, so Starr jokes that once the restoration work is finished, she'll be the Leona B.; but any material that can be salvaged, will be, he said.

This past April, staff members from Connecticut-based Mystic Seaport Museum's shipyard documentation office came to the island and took measurements of the boat. These will be turned into detailed boat plans that a shipwright can then use to restore her.

Island legacy

The Leona is not — as is commonly mistaken — a double-ender. She is a classic Block Island wooden fishing boat that worked on the waters around the island as a multi-purpose fishing, swordfishing and lobstering vessel for more than 50 years. Built by Fred Shogren in 1940, the boat is the last of her kind made on the island. Shogren served as a sailor in World War II and was stationed on Block Island where he met and married Leona Littlefield Harvey. He started building the boat named after his wife in a barn on his West Side farm after the 1938 hurricane decimated the island's fishing fleet. The side of the barn had to be removed once the Leona A. was completed. Leona's brother, Sands Littlefield (known to islanders as "Captain Sands") bought the boat, which he eventually sold to Stanley Smith. In the mid-1990s, Alan Pesch, of Grace's Cove Road, who bought the boat from Smith, donated her to the Historical Society.

Starr can remember the island of 40 years ago, when fishing boats like the Leona were plentiful, each with their own individual personality, each reflecting in small ways the men that captained them. He recalls August days as the boats left the harbor, heading east to "stick a couple of swordfish." The fishermen would come back with 200- to 300-pound swordfish, he said, and, right on the dock, Sam Mott — who owned the Spring House, Narragansett Inn, Dead Eye's and Smuggler's — would bid against Paul Filippi — who owned Champlin's and Ballard's — to see who got the fish.

"Now, there are no swordfish around," Starr said, "That's the sad part. And if we don't do something to preserve the Leona A., all we're going to end up with is a few pictures and a few newspaper articles saying this is how people fished here."

Starr is one of the boat's biggest S.O.U.L. mates. He's spent a good deal more of his life on the water than off it: For 18-and-a-half years, he was a tanker captain. "The sea is my passion," he said. Starr believes that saving the Leona is vital, and he hopes people realize the magnitude of what the boat represents. "Farming and fishing," he said, "was what was here; that's what Block Island was about. It was our way of life on the island and is our history."

Douglas Gasner, the Historical Society's new administrator, believes that the boat can help teach people conservation. When boats like the Leona were working the oceans, he said, a few men would go out and fish; it wasn't like the large-scale, mechanized fishing that takes place today.

Once the Leona is restored, Starr and Gasner dream of fixing up a double-ender that is currently in a Connecticut field.

Donating to the restoration

The rough estimate for the boat's total restoration is $150,000 to $175,000, said Starr. A few people have already agreed to donate some materials — lumber, an engine, a shaft and a propeller. The S.O.U.L. fund has so far raised around $7,000 in cash. Starr said the goal is to raise at least an additional $100,000.

There's always the hope that one person may step forward to be the project's primary sponsor, said Starr, but "every dollar will help." If you would like to donate money to the restoration fund, visit the Block Island Historical Society on Old Town Road. All donations are tax deductible. Proceeds from hats, mugs and shirts with the Leona logo on them, sold in the Historical Society's gift shop, will also go toward the boat's restoration.

The timeline of the whole project depends on how soon money can be raised. Starr said that if roughly $50,000 of the reconstruction costs can be raised, then the restoring process — which will take a few years — can begin. The hope, of course, is that the Leona can start being restored as soon as possible and, as soon as possible, have a captain at her helm, a crew on her decks and a wake off her stern.