May 14, 2024
Courtesy of Dave Carpenter.
AMC’s path to zero greenhouse gas emissions winds through some unexpected places. Today, it’s a boatyard in an industrial park beneath Boston’s Tobin Bridge.
This hangar-sized work area is the headquarters of custom builder Boston Boatworks. A group from AMC Three Mile Island, a volunteer-run camp in New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee, is here for a status update. The boat they’ve come to see, the boat they’ve all worked towards for years, is different from the rest. It’s all-electric.
Three Mile Island is remote—the island’s name comes from the distance to the shoreline town of Center Harbor. Since 1913, the volunteer community here has owned and operated a small boat, called a launch, to transport visitors to and from camp. This keeps the island accessible to campers of all backgrounds, not just boat owners.
The current launch, Appy V (Appy is short for “Appalachian”), has been in service since 1980. We’re here to see its replacement, Appy VI. The former is a gas guzzler. It uses approximately 600 gallons of gasoline per year and accounts for more than a third of the island’s carbon footprint. The new Appy’s electric engine will be fully offset by solar panels at AMC Cardigan Lodge.
“That’s the essence of electric propulsion. You can generate power through renewable sources [like] solar and wind. There’s only one source for gasoline,” says Boston Boatworks owner Scott Smith.
The relationship between Smith and AMC Three Mile Island is deeper than just business. In 2019, Mark Lindsay, Boston Boatworks co-founder and a decades-long Three Mile Island volunteer, suddenly passed away. As a boat builder and environmentalist, Lindsay was the driving force behind Appy VI. Friends and loved ones from both parts of his life united to finish the job.
“I’m just so excited that it’s actually happening after all these years. It was Mark’s dream for almost as long as we went to Three Mile Island,” said Marty Morgan, Lindsay’s widow. After his death, Morgan was instrumental in keeping the project alive.
Appy VI is scheduled for completion by Memorial Day 2024. A launch party will follow on June 30. This boat has been many things—one man’s vision, a hull in a Marblehead, Massachusetts garage, and now a nearly finished vessel. Soon it’ll take its final form on the waters of Winnipesaukee.
(Top) Mark Lindsay at his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, loading his trailer for a trip to Three Mile Island. Courtesy of Marty Morgan. (Botton) Appy VI at Boston Boatworks, April 2024. Photo by Matt Morris
A Life on the Water
Mark Lindsay was a master boat builder. Over a four-decade career, he made a name for himself crafting racing sailboats from lightweight materials more often seen in the aerospace sector. His boats competed in races around the world, winning often.
“Mark was building race boats that were lighter, faster, more competitive, and just plain cooler than the other boats out there,” says Smith.
He got started as a teenager and dropped out of college to work in a boatyard. While he ultimately returned to academia, studying at Penn and MIT, boats were never far from his mind.
“He spent as much of his time in the MIT Sailing Pavilion and racing as he did in classes. And then he worked for a naval architect. When that company closed, he was going to go get another job. But this couple asked him if he would build a boat. And he said yes, and I helped him find a place to build it,” recalls Morgan.
That couple, Joan and Art Ellis, took the boat to the 1975 World Championship off the coast of France. They won, making Joan Ellis the first woman racing in the Fireball design class, and the first American, to win a world title.
More boats followed, earning Lindsay accolades and respect across the industry. One of those fans was Scott Smith. One summer Smith was racing with a few friends on a custom-built Lindsay boat, competing at a high level despite being “a bunch of amateurs.” Smith’s future wife was on an opposing craft.
“At the time she was racing on her boyfriend’s boat, which was not a Mark Lindsay boat. And we were just clobbering it everywhere we went. She jumped ship and dumped that boyfriend,” said Smith.
Soon after, Smith and Lindsay went into business together.
A watercolor painting by Mark Lindsay of the Three Mile Island dock. Courtesy of Marty Morgan.
Giving Back to Three Mile Island
As Mark Lindsay’s business grew, his family, and their time on AMC Three Mile Island, remained constant. Beginning when their son turned four in 1989, the minimum age to attend, the Lindsays took their family to the island for a week every summer. They wouldn’t miss a year for the rest of Mark’s life.
“We made lots of friends in the community because, if you go the same week, there are often the same families year after year. So we have a lot of connections to people there. For us, it was like having a family reunion,” said Morgan.
Lindsay became a leader in Three Mile’s tight-knit volunteer community, serving as committee chair for four years. He also brought his talents as a builder, including helping to maintain the island’s boats. Morgan recalls that Mark, never one for sitting still, even rebuilt the dock by their cabin on their first summer on the island.
As the years passed, Lindsay learned to settle down. He spent more time relaxing on the cabin porch and watercolor painting landscapes of the island and water.
The dining hall on AMC Three Mile Island. Amanda Kowalski.
But sailing continued to occupy him, Morgan says. He organized “Sunfish Regattas,” low-key Thursday afternoon boat races on Lake Winnipesaukee, and taught sailing to campers.
“Anybody who wanted to go [sailing], he would just say, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ If they didn’t know anything about sailing, he would teach them.”
Starting in 2006, he was making plans for a newer, greener Appy. He enlisted Doug Zurn, a frequent designer for Boston Boatworks, to collaborate on an all-electric launch for Three Mile Island. Lindsay was planning on partially funding and building the boat himself. It would be a perfect combination of his passions.
It would also be the last project he worked on. On September 6, 2019, Mark Lindsay hosted a planning meeting for Appy VI at his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Hours later, he was gone.
Bruce Dyson (left) and an associate prepare Appy VI’s hull for transport to Boston Boatworks. Photo by Glenn Ritch.
Building an Electric Boat
The path to finishing Appy VI after Mark Lindsay’s passing wasn’t linear. The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, delayed efforts. But loved ones and friends from the Three Mile Island community contributed. For some, that meant donating financially. Others offered their time and expertise to build the launch itself.
Three Mile Island’s boating needs are unique, says Scott Smith. Most clients he sees are private owners seeking a vessel for their family and friends. Those boats tend to be used for long but relatively infrequent rides. Appy VI, meanwhile, will take up to eight shorter trips in a day, all back and forth on the same route. This makes it an ideal candidate for an electric motor. Stakeholders also wanted the boat to be durable enough to last for decades to come. A boat’s longevity, according to Smith, is inherently linked to limited emissions.
“There’s more emissions made during the construction of a boat than it ever emits or uses in its lifetime. It’s not like a car. So, preventing another boat from being built by building a boat that lasts indefinitely is the best thing that we can do.”
To meet the challenge, the Three Mile Island committee continued to work with Doug Zurn on Appy VI’s design. Bruce Dyson, a boat builder, sailor, and one of Lindsay’s close friends, worked from Zurn’s blueprint to construct the boat’s hull in his garage workshop in Marblehead, Massachusetts. In October 2023, the hull was transported to its final construction location: Boston Boatworks, the business Lindsay helped found.
(Top) Marty Morgan and Bruce Dyson in Dyson’s workshop. (Bottom) Appy VI designer Doug Zurn. Photos by Glenn Ritch.
Appy VI is the company’s first electric boat. Nick Bannister, sales coordinator for Appy VI at Boston Boatworks, hopes more will follow as electric propulsion technology improves and can be scaled up to larger vessels. He says the company’s focus on building with lightweight materials, like the kind Mark Lindsay innovated, is an advantage for projects like this.
“One of the things we do focus on is weight, or lack of. Trying to make launches as light and as strong and durable as possible. Which is perfect for an electric boat,” said Nick Bannister.
When we visit Boston Boatworks in Spring 2024, the work is nearly done. Zurn, Dyson, and members of the Three Mile Island committee climb aboard. They open a latch and examine the electric motor. They marvel at the space available for campers’ luggage.
It won’t be long before the boat is in the water and the first Three Mile Island campers can experience Appy VI for themselves. They’ll look out on the lake and listen to the loons over the quiet electric motor. Maybe they’ll think about Mark Lindsay.
For the Three Mile Island committee, the completion of Appy VI will close years of fundraising and coordination on a project that betters the island and honors their friend. For the builders and designers, an electric launch is the kind of challenge they know Lindsay would have loved to puzzle over. Marty Morgan thinks it’s a fitting tribute.
“Mark and boats. They just go together.”