Ryan's Commander
by Johanna Ryan Guy

For Dave and June, the Ryan’s Commander was a dream come true. Dave was 46 at the time the boat was being built. He celebrated his 47th birthday that June 19 on the boat. June had just turned 42 that December. They had invested heavily, both in terms of time and money. They had put a lifetime of hard work and risks into building what they had. So, at the ages of 46 and 42, Dave and June weren’t doing too shabbily.

Dave had a few years ahead of June. He had gotten the fisherman’s bug very early in life. Could one not have noticed that the Ryan boys had done pretty darn well for themselves at this point in their lives? Not bad for two boys who had very little money and had started out together in a speedboat they had built with their father. They would later end up fishing in a trap skiff, the David and Stephen, which they had also built with their father. That was named after each of their boys. Yes, both Dave and June had sons of their own at this point. I couldn’t imagine Dave as a married man, let alone having a child. June you could see, but not Dave.

I can still smell the stink of the fibreglass. We lived, ate, and breathed it, until the boats were finally finished. It was always nice to go down below to the stores after school, and see Daddy building boats. It was like an art. To see him and the boys bending the bow planks by placing them in hot water – wow! It was magic to my little-girl eyes. I adored the three of them.

To me, Daddy could do anything in those bibbed coveralls, with his pencil either behind his ear or in his bib. He taught Dave and June everything as he went, just as Grandfather Ryan had taught him a generation ago, and his father before him. To see them planing off the timbers was something else. Little pieces of shavings landed at their feet as they continued to turn this wood into the perfect boat. A sight for sore eyes, as the old folks would say.

I can see my brother Ken and me, playing with the little pieces of wood, building something of our own. To dream: The greatest discovery a young child can make is that nothing is impossible. Seeing that boat being built from the keel up helped me make this discovery. Determination was the key, something I as a young impressionable girl saw a lot of in my family.

Finally, Dave and June took the plunge. They decided to get a longliner. Research had to be done and decisions made. They were up to the task. They had already proven, many times over, that they could take their hand to almost anything.

The Jennifer and Tara Leigh, a 34-footer, was the first larger boat they had, after the trap skiff, followed by the Jennifer and Tara Leigh II, a 45-footer. Ronald Furlong, our nephew, sailed on both. Ronald had fishing in his blood, too. Whenever you looked, he was down to the Ryans’. How could he not get involved, when he was around so much? Ronald literally grew up around the boys.

Dave and June had several successful years with that second boat, until the urge for bigger and better got into them. Maybe it was a challenge, maybe even a thrill, and maybe they did it just because it was there to be gotten. Who really knows what makes one take such a giant step forward in business?