Wayfarer official addresses expansion issues

CAMDEN – An owner and an executive of Wayfarer Marine Corp. tried to set the record straight this week after what they saw as a negative public meeting Monday night about the company’s expansion plans.

“That was not a balanced meeting because it was formed as opposition to Wayfarer Marine,” said Human Relations Manager Jeff Lewis Wednesday in an interview.

At that meeting, which Lewis attended, several people criticized Wayfarer and its plans to have the zoning changed to relocate the company’s storage and maintenance from its Bean Yard to a site on Route 1 north of Camden.

Wayfarer Marine has developed a master plan to increase the boatyard’s productivity, including consolidating operations in a smaller footprint, storing many boats offsite and developing a conservation easement to ensure that the operation stays a working waterfront in Camden harbor, according to a company statement.

The proposal includes the establishment of a permanent conservation easement encompassing 4.1 acres of working waterfront. Since large boats account for a major part of Wayfarer’s operations, the expansion of the lower yard will create room to work on four large boats at once, the company states.

Wayfarer Marine seeks to rezone the Bean Yard from Harbor Business District to Coastal Residential so that the company can build residences there to fund its operations up to $15 million in capital costs and pay its debt. Wayfarer would retain the property to build and sell the residences, said General Manager and part-time owner Sandy McGaw.

The expansion would double the company’s work force of 50 year-round employees and 15 subcontractors, Lewis added.

Ann Montgomery, who with her husband, David, has kept a boat at Wayfarer Marine for 40 years, said Thursday that she and her husband are “very loyal people to Wayfarer.” For a few years, David Montgomery was a part owner of the company, she said.

“The Bean Yard was where Holly Bean built 54 boats from a single mast to a six-masted schooner,” she said of the 19th century boat builder.

“It’s such a marvelous asset to this harbor,” she said. “We want a boatyard in that space to succeed.”

Despite her feelings for the company, she said she could not “extend them the zoning rights to make it possible for them to have a residential use in the Bean Yard.”

“I want that kept as a working waterfront,” she said, adding that the harbor attracts many serious yachtsmen.

“I would hope that they would raise the money privately to help their business,” she said of the current Wayfarer owners. “That’s what other businesses have to do.”

“I think we’ve laid out a lot,” said Lewis, objecting to criticism Monday that the company has not been transparent in divulging its plans to the public.

“There was even a charge the other night that CAFG [Camden Area Futures Group] is now in the pockets of Wayfarer Marine,” he said.

“We have honestly tried to produce information as quickly as possible from the start with CAFG and the planning board,” he added.

“We maintain and store yachts,” said Lewis. “We build components. Sometimes when you do a refit you do a rebuilding, but we’re not building new.

“For many years, Wayfarer has been known as a refit and repair yard,” he added.

He said that for many years the fact that the Bean Yard abuts the water has had nothing to do with the water because most boats for storage are trucked to their location.

He called the comment made at the meeting about 54 boats having been built at the Bean Yard “a beautiful piece of history.”

“If we said, ‘OK, we’re going to go back in time and have everything the way it used to be,’ they would be so up in arms about how crappy the place would be,” he said referring to the grimy details of boat building.

“How do you win?” he asked rhetorically.

McGaw said a suggestion Monday to build tugboats in Camden harbor was unrealistic because of anticipated neighborhood opposition.

“Even if you wanted to build tugboats in the Bean Yard – I suppose it would be possible – I’d be getting 37,000 calls a month from neighbors complaining about rust and everything associated with building a tugboat,” McGaw said.

He said the boatyard gets complaints throughout the year from neighbors.

“This certainly is no place to build tugboats,” McGaw said of Camden harbor.

To a suggestion that the boatyard has an apprenticeship program, Lewis said that Wayfarer Marine is one of the companies involved in the newly forming Marine Training Center as part of the Many Flags concept in Thomaston.