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She is a shoal draft — drawing just 3-1/2 – able to get in and out of the shallower waters off of LI and CT. (Sometimes, says Geoff Jones, she’d go up to docks, other times get intentionally beached on a falling tide, during which wagons would bring goods out to be loaded.) For much of the 20th century, she was one of the work boats owned by the the family of Lawrence Malloy.

Photos of Anne in earlier times. They appear in the book, ‘Working Thin Waters” written by Geoff Jones’ father, Stephen Jones.

Geoff Jones says he’s known Anne all of his life, as his family were friends of the Malloys. His father, Stephen Jones, a nautical writer and owner of West Mystic Wooden Boat Company, chronicled Lawrence Malloy’s livelihood in his 2001 book, “Working Thin Waters,” named for the waters traversed by Anne and other boats of her kind.

Vantage of the harbor from the port side door to the wheelhouse.

Geoff Jones on deck Anne..

A dozen years ago, Stephen Jones bought Anne and the boat became a father-and-son project. That meant a new engine, electrical system, plumbing, and working over the wheelhouse, the 3rd in the vessel’s history. The current one is a replica of Anne’s first — quite different from one era’s wheelhouse that, he says, looked more like a chicken coop.

The wheelhouse of Anne, looking aft


Her striking form goes a long way. Geoff Jones says there’s limited varnish on the exterior – one hatch way. The rest of the exterior is stoutly functional. Capping the rails is angelique, a hard wood that can take a knock. (In answer to a question about the angelique, it was alternatively described by Jones as a “pesky rain forest” wood.)

The galley in Anne’s cabin.

She is still, 130 years later, occasionally a working boat. Just before leaving Mystic in November, Geoff Jones says, an issue arose at a Mystic Town Board meeting of a fishing boat that broke free. Anne took on the job of towing it to a “scrap heap” says Jones. (And on his trip, Jones says he’s towed two boats to land.)

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Posted Wednesday April 8, 2015 by Melinda Penkava

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