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Show College Youths Pool rtesources In Ship Venture Collegians Buy 150 Foot Diesel Powered Ship for Coastwise Traffic. BOSTON. Three youthful collegians colle-gians have turned back the "recession" "reces-sion" this year and have gone down to the sea in a ship. Actually the trio were aided by four others, but the originators of a plan to revive an abandoned, 90-year-old coastwise shipping line were three New England boys, the eldest a 1936 graduate of Massachusetts Massachu-setts Institute of Technology. The leader of the bold pioneers was John C. Stapler, a graduate of I Tech's ship operation course and employee of a New York steamship line. With him were Alden H. An- derson, a classmate and employee of a Boston ship agency, and Frederick Fred-erick E. Drake Jr., who left Bow-doin Bow-doin college to ship around the world as an assistant purser. Stapler is credited with or blamed with the business venture. Old Hulks Tied Up. Early in 1935 the Eastern Steamship Steam-ship lines suspended operation of their Bangor-Boston line and, despite de-spite protests of a few shippers, tied up several old hulks, and announced they never would run again. But Stapler had other ideas. He called a score of meetings with Anderson An-derson and Drake where they pored over maps and charts, figured gross tonnage and discussed maritime labor la-bor problems. The upshot was that all three threw up their jobs and gallantly dumped their savings into a common com-mon pile, but it was scarcely sufficient suffi-cient to meet their personal needs. So with an inspired sales talk on their tongues and an armful of pa- i pers showing the advantage of a Diesel-powered ship for coastwise use, the frantic financiers sold stock to their friends to business men or anyone who would buy. They sold stock and bought the 150-foot Diesel-powered ship Penobscot. Penob-scot. They sold stock and bought paint. They sold more stock and hired a crew. Last spring they announced a shipping schedule, loaded the vessel ves-sel with 38 tons of cargo and nosed out of the island-dotted harbor for points "down East." Beat Hard Luck. Off Rockland the engines broke down and the good ship Penobscot hobbled into port, unable to proceed pro-ceed for many days and with the cargo still undelivered. By hiring trucks the young owners own-ers delivered the cargo on schedule sched-ule and repaired the motors, but their bank account was woefully depleted. de-pleted. However, at Bangor the shippers were delighted at the resourceful skippers who delivered the goods on time and despite the accident were ready to ship again. That was the beginning of success. suc-cess. Since then the ship has increased in-creased tonnage on each trip. The engines have held together and there has been no labor trouble. Incidentally, with less than a year's experience, the youths are planning an expansion program that will take their ship farther north along the coast to get cargo from the fish canneries. "But," Stapler says, "that's another an-other story." |