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Photo Kaimi Lum
David Ryder, left, and his brother William tell the crowd about what it was like growing up with a surfman for a dad. The boat in the foreground is a 19-ft. dory once used by the Life Savers. |
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Photos Kaimi Lum
The Old Harbor Life-Saving Station was originally located on Nauset spit in Chatham. In 1978 it was floated to Provincetown and moved to its current foundation at Race Point Beach. |
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Sons of surfman tell sea stories
Banner Daily Update posted Thurs. May 17
By Kaimi Rose Lum
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN -- No one can spin a yarn like the son of a surfman, except, perhaps, the surfman himself, but there aren't many of those around anymore. It was the two sons of former surfman Richard E. Ryder who provided the entertainment in a gathering at the Old Harbor Life-Saving Station on Tuesday, one of a series of events taking place throughout the week in celebration of Maritime Days.
Regaling the audience of tourists and residents with true stories of men against the sea, the main character being their brawny old salt of a father who was "more at home on the water than he was driving a Model-T Ford," 91-year-old David Ryder and his brother, William Ryder, were the center of attention during the two-hour open house, arranged by the National Seashore. It was a fitting setting, as the 110-year-old Life-Saving Station is where their father started his career as a surfman in 1902 and where he lived in the early 1930s when he returned to serve as station keeper.
The job of a surfman was to keep an eye out for ships in trouble from his post on the shore and, when necessary, to forge out into the breakers with his crew, sometimes in a dory and sometimes in a contraption known as the breeches buoy, to rescue stranded sailors. Back in the days before the canal was built, commercial vessels had to travel all the way around the backside of the Cape to get to Boston and beyond, and they often got stuck on the shoals.
"It was a tough way to make a living but there was enough money to make that they would gamble on it," said David Ryder, who grew up to become a fisherman. Seafarers had no radio, no GPS — "factors many people don't understand today. We have power, devices to keep people on course. For me it's a revelation to see how things have changed since I had only a compass and a pocket watch."
The Old Harbor Life-Saving Station was originally located at the bottom of the Nauset Beach spit, across the inlet from Chatham. Their dad was keeper of the station when David and William were teenaged boys, and when there weren't ships breaking up on the bars or survivors of wrecks needing tending to in the station, there were plenty of other things to distract them. They got a kick out of watching their dad row his skiff across the inlet in a stiff wind (the only way to and from town was across the water) — "he was pretty handy on the water," William said — and watching the surfmen prepare for their rescue work by doing all sorts of drills.
Then there were the jackrabbits. Jackrabbits apparently once roamed freely over the dunes of Nauset Beach, and the Ryder family dog loved to chase them. "That was the kind of excitement we had out there when there weren't any wrecks," William said.
The brothers also fielded questions from the audience. Some people wanted to know what kind of boots the surfmen wore and what kind of lanterns they carried ("ones that couldn't get blown out in the wind," David answered.) The room was strewn with relics from the U.S. Life-Saving days, including a 19-ft. dory used by the rescuers, a breeches buoy, and coils of rope and tackle.
The National Seashore is hoping to restore the historic station, built in 1898. Park Ranger Christiana Admiral said during the open house that it will cost about $450,000 in federal funding to perform some necessary repairs and make it "look the way it looked." The building's structural integrity was compromised somewhat when it was floated from Chatham to Provincetown back in 1978.
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Sewer expansion construction begins
Surf shop moves, sponsors beach clean-up
Nauset lacrosse girls stopped on Friday
Spouse & Red Molly — upcoming music
Kibbles & Skits
C5 well ownership in dispute
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May 17th, 2007