Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 2 2 14 BEACHCOMBER continued from page 13 F. Slade Dale and the Emma C. Berry F. Slade Dale. Who is F. Slade Dale? Locals and visitors alike may rec- ognize F. Slade Dale's name from the Slade Dale Sanctuary on maps of Point Pleasant, but if they gaze upon the glittering waters near the Bay Head Yacht Club, their eyes fall upon his unassuming yet monumental maritime legacy. F. Slade Dale was a prominent boat enthusiast and experienced sail- or who called Bay Head home and engaged in memorable sea voyages and bay races. He built his dream marina, the Dale Yacht Basin, on the banks of Barnegat Bay. Dale is credit- ed for introducing the Jersey Shore to motors, which he used to power sev- eral Chris Craft boats he purchased and kept at the marina. Today, the Dale Yacht Basin is the current boat house known as the Dale Building at the Bay Head Yacht Club and is listed on the National Register as a con- tributing structure within Bay Head's historic district. In 1925, Dale and a friend, Frank Coyle, sailed a pair of Barnegat Bay sneakbox vessels powered by small outboard motors from New York to Florida. They traveled on inland waterways as much as possible. The journey of 1,500 miles was complet- ed in three months. One of Dale's many awards was earning the Cruising Club of America's Blue Water Medal in 1929 for sailing to Jamaica and back with Peter Jeness, Jr. in a cutter Dale designed named Postscript. The non- stop last leg of the journey, a 1,200- mile jaunt from Havana, Cuba to the Barnegat Inlet, took fourteen days and included spending seventy-two hours in a gale off Cape Hatteras. During World War II, Dale's boat-building experience and nautical expertise resulted in his appointment as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, where he supervised the building of submarine chasers and patrol torpedo boats. Locally, Dale was well-known as an avid promot- er of all types of boating from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, and commonly cruised along the Jersey Shore's waters in vessels he built or restored by hand until his death in 1972 at seventy years old. The Emma C. Berry Fishing Smack The Emma C. Berry fishing smack was built at the Palmer Shipyard in Noank, Connecticut in 1866 by James A. Latham and named after the daughter of Captain John Henry Berry. A sloop-rigged wet well smack for the mackerel fisheries, the Berry was launched on June 5, 1866 two miles south of Mystic, Connecticut at the mouth of the Mystic River. Captain Berry sold the Berry in the fall of that year, and it continued as a fishing vessel in the waters of Southern New England. In 1887, the Berry was rerigged as a schooner, which made for easi- er handling by a smaller crew. She continued as a fishing vessel under several different owners from 1919 The Emma C. Berry fishing smack, December 1940. courtesy of the Bay Head Historical Society courtesy of Thomas J. Lauria

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