“Mrs. Neilson [Clara Augusta Rosengarten, Mrs. Lewis Levick Neilson (1871-1955)] also chartered a Friendship sloop called “Reliance” from Jake Lunt, and my father [Chester Warren Stanley (1900-1971)] sailed it for her. The “Reliance” was a thirty-six-footer that was built on Swans Island in the early 1900s. She had a make-and-break engine down in the cabin, and the propeller shaft went out through the side. Mrs. Neilson chartered that sloop during the war because gas was rationed, and she wanted to go out in something that wouldn’t take much gasoline.
I can remember that old sloop. She was still good enough to sail in, but she had to be bailed every day. We’d go aboard of her, and there was a hatch in the floor where you could drop a bucket down in, like just dropping a bucket in a well. You’d pull out ten buckets every day, and she’d stay right even. You never got it all.” - “Ralph Stanley : Tales of a Maine Boatbuilder” by Craig S. Milner and Ralph W. Stanley, published by Down East Books, Camden, Maine 2004, p. 48.
