OpenDaily8am-6pm • 799-3374 •101OceanStreet,SouthPortland Family-Owned Old World Butcher Shop & Market Come find all the great flavors of Summer in one store! icons 104 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine Courtesy Gary F. Smith, President, Portland Marine Society (2) tain Earl B. Walker that “when the winter weather was lousy, they could only stay out for 15 minutes at a time at the open helm. Then they had to relieve each other.” Two crewmen waited below for their turn. V isibility in the driving snow was so poor that Captain George Lubee sent Coast Guard signalman Daniel Ward forward to spot navigation- al buoys. Years later, Ward remembered, “I took my station but could not see the stern. My rubber gear was starting to freeze sol- id. I could not hear the bell buoys. I saw through the snow surf breaking in front of the boat.” The deadly shoreline of Portland Head. Yelling “Rocks ahead!” Ward slid back to the helm and pulled hard to star- board, knocking the Captain onto the slip- pery deck. Lucky to have missed a wreck, the crew faced an even greater problem in the snowstorm. Before Portland Pilot could return safely to port, she had to navigate anti-submarine defenses–underwater nets and buoyant minefields designed to snare the German U-boats that lurked offshore and terrorized the Atlantic seaboard. In the wild snow and wind, the crew blasted the horn, hoping to alert the minesweeper guarding the protection zone. Would they run afoul of the floating mines? The mine- sweeper heard the Portland Pilot, opened the nets, let the schooner pass into the har- bor, and closed the nets behind her. A State Shrouded in Darkness Because of the U-boat threat in particu- lar, the need to protect the coastline was the greatest it had been since the Confed- erates invaded Portland Harbor in 1863. CaptainGranvilleIsaacSmith servedasaPortlandpilotfor over44years.