New patrol boat for Plymouth, Mass.(Construction Activity at Workboat Yards)

If you're Joe Ritz, the harbor master for the town of Plymouth, Mass., there's always something to do. To start with, he has 35 miles of coastline to patrol, including the shoreline along the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Add to that a large fleet of pleasure and commercial fishing boats to watch over and the second busiest boat ramp in Massachusetts to take care of.

Ritz said his crews often respond to distress calls as well as security duty at the power plant. "We respond quite frequently to that area for random patrols or to remove someone from the area."

So it's no wonder that Ritz wanted something faster than the 16- to 18-knot aluminum boat that the Harbor Master's Department had been using. Since he had always liked the lines of boats designed and built by Calvin Beal of Beals Island, Maine, that's where he went for a new patrol boat. Beal is well known among New England's lobstermen for the wood and fiberglass boats he's designed and built. He's also designed boats for other boatbuilders as well.

Ritz called Beal, and Beal sent him down the road a few miles from Beals Island to Milbridge, Maine, home of Sargent's Custom Boats, which ended up with the contract to finish off the 34'X13' fiberglass hull, which was laid up by Otto Proctor of Waldo, Maine. It was ...