Lawmakers Visit Historic Rescue Boat

ORLEANS – The historic rescue boat CG36500 carried a small group of VIPs outside Rock Harbor last Friday and brought them a little closer to appreciating the boat’s cultural and economic importance. The trip was the first stop on a visit to several cultural attractions in Orleans by the state’s joint legislative Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development.
State Rep. Hadley Luddy, D-Fourth Barnstable, a member of the joint committee, said the lawmakers came to Rock Harbor at the invitation of the Orleans Historical Society, to get a first-hand look at the famed lifeboat in one of its last trips of the season. It was also a chance to ride the boat “before it sort of goes into permanent display” after next year, Luddy said. With volunteer coxswain Bill Amaru at the helm, the 36500 edged away from its dock and fought a stiff breeze for a short trip into Cape Cod Bay. Whether or not they knew it, the lawmakers were likely to get a bit wet from the chop.
But historical society members were sure it wouldn’t dampen enthusiasm for their plans to create a new Ocean Rescue Museum of Cape Cod, with the CG36500 as its centerpiece. Next year marks the 75th anniversary of the rescue of 32 men from the stern section of the stricken tanker Pendleton in a blizzard off Chatham by a four-man crew on the 36500, the most famous small boat rescue in the history of the Coast Guard, dramatized in the 2016 feature film “The Finest Hours.” The historical society and its volunteers lovingly restored the rescue boat and operated it for years as a floating museum.
“Next season will probably be the last season that it’s in the water. You know, it’s an 80-year-old wooden boat,” said Capital Campaign Director Liz Adams. It’s been decades of hard work by volunteers “keeping her afloat and keeping the story alive. And the museum will do that, just in a different way that’s more accessible for a broader audience,” she said.
Building the museum on their property on River Road will provide a permanent home for the lifeboat, and can’t happen soon enough. Amaru and a small army of other volunteers have worked hard to keep the boat seaworthy, but its old planks have shrunk over time, and its bilge pumps have a regular workout keeping the seawater at bay. The $4 million museum project received strong support from the historical society’s board and its campaign committee, and six weeks ago the effort received a “transformational lead gift” of $250,000 from a donor, Adams said. Last week, there was more good news: the effort was approved for a $200,000 grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. And hopefully, that’s not the last of the support coming from the state, she said.
“We are waiting to hear sometime in the next couple of weeks about a grant application for $750,000 from the Mass. Office of Travel and Tourism,” she said. It doesn’t hurt to impress upon a group of visiting lawmakers the cultural and economic benefits of preserving the famous rescue boat, Adams added. There are four million visitors to the Cape Cod National Seashore each year, and one million visitors to Nauset Beach in Orleans. The proposed Ocean Rescue Museum could prove to be another big draw.
“It really can be a destination. We’re looking at simple but very effective things, [like] having signage out on Route 6 saying Ocean Rescue Museum of Cape Cod, this way.”
After the visiting delegation finished its boat ride, it was scheduled to visit the historical society to see the site of the proposed museum.
“We’re also going to have lunch at the Land Ho!, which felt like it was very quintessential Cape Cod,” Luddy said with a chuckle. “And then we will go from there to the Academy of Performing Arts.” There, committee members would be able to witness one of the town’s key cultural treasures, housed in a carefully preserved historic building. “And then we’ll visit the Outermost Market, which is a great chance to just see all of the local community offerings and businesses,” Luddy said.