The Secret Life of Quonset
Despite its importance to the state, few Rhode Islanders know what really goes on at Quonset Point.
Bernie Boucher. Photography by James Jones.
Bernie Boucher, heavy lift superintendent, and Rosie the Travel Lift, J. Goodison Company Shipyard
i’m a little embarrassed to admit how much the children’s book Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel shaped my expectations about the giant lifting crane at the Goodison Shipyard. Okay, I didn’t expect it to be steam-powered. But I definitely thought there would be a little man sitting high in a booth and pulling levers back and forth.
Wrong on all counts. Tall and eloquent, crane operator Bernie Boucher speaks like an engineer and runs Rosie, the shipyard’s 900-ton-capacity travel lift, from a joystick-equipped control panel hung from his neck.
Aided by a squad of spotters who ensure that the ninety-by-eighty-foot crane safely navigates a yard full of temporarily landlocked ferries, tugs, fishing boats and even a fully rigged tall ship (“Sometimes we have only inches of clearance to play with”), Boucher walks backwards ahead of the lift as Rosie creeps toward her destination at one mile per hour, dangling the eighty-five-foot New Bedford-based commercial fishing boat Hunter from her straps.
The fishing boat weighs 240 tons, but “that’s nothing for this machine,” says Boucher, who points out that Rosie can scoop a 900-ton boat out of the water and transport it to anywhere in the Goodison yard for repair and refitting.
Boucher first met Rosie even before she was built, on site, by a team from manufacturer Marine Travelifts, which delivered the lift from Wisconsin on twenty-eight tractor trailers. Named for hardworking World War II icon Rosie the Riveter, the lift isn’t just strong but also quite the dancer, able to spin 360 degrees on the axis of her four pairs of quad wheels.
“Big toys were always of interest to me,” deadpans Boucher, who previously worked on large cranes at neighboring boatbuilder Senesco Marine, “and 900 tons is nothing to sneeze at.”
In fact, Rosie is the most powerful travel lift in New England, allowing Goodison to work on ships like the Newport-based tall ship Oliver Hazard Perry, a 207-foot long, 130-foot tall three-master that’s the largest civilian sail training vessel in the United States.
With its height and unusual center of gravity, the Perry was an especially tricky job, says Boucher, requiring careful balancing on the lift to prevent it from swaying during the lift and move.
“You have to be a surgeon on the controls to ensure that the lift is rock steady,” says Boucher, who tries to think three steps ahead to anticipate any problems. “Erratic movements can be a disservice to the boat.”
Boucher’s job ranges from ensuring that the lifting straps are placed in such a way that they don’t damage any parts of the ship’s hull to calculating the path the lift will take to its final destination. “On a good day, we’re a well-oiled machine that can put a boat on land in half an hour,” he says.
When it comes to the heavy lifting, however, he’s happy to just let Rosie, the ultimate teammate, do her thing: “I’m big, so get out of my way — it’s time to kick ass.”
