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Pleasure
Island Attractions
MOBY DICK RIDE |
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From
the 1960
Goldpan Gulch Gazette |
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Hunt Family
on Moby Dick Ride in 1964 (Click for larger images)
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"Moby Dick"
Photo by Edward F. Carr for
Benzaquin story in the Sunday Globe, July 12, 1959 |
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"Engineer
Norman Downs works mechanism to raise Moby Dick"
Photo by Edward F. Carr for
Benzaquin story in the Sunday Globe, July 12, 1959 |
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Rhino
Photo by Edward F. Carr for Benzaquin story in the Sunday Globe, July
12, 1959 |
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April 11, 1959 — With a hearty heave the first of a fleet of six 3500 pound "Pleasure Island" whaleboats starts down the ways into George's River at Thomaston, Maine. Mr. Leon Fitts, town manager, is shown at the tiller of the boat which will be used in the Moby Dick Ride at the Park. Photo from the Boston Globe library by Magna Film Productions for the Pleasure Island Public Relations Division. | |||||
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July 13, 1959: THAR SHE BLOWS! — Moby Dick surfaces for the first time yesterday, on inland sea at recently-opened Pleasure Island in Wakefield. From the Boston Globe | |||||
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From Bob
Povier, Pleasure Island Sunoco
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From Rob
Sears, Burlington, 1967 perhaps... someone here looks seasick.
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The
group of photos below are from Ken Saunders, 1959 park announcer.
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1962
Photo by Marilyn Peters
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Cannibals:
1962 Photo by Marilyn Peters
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How to Start a Whale: One of my jobs was to start-up the Whale before the park opened. I would drive a boat out to the Whale Shack (unlike Disney World the boats were not on tracks. Ask any of the drivers who crashed). Unlock the Compressor building and start the Air Compressor first. This was a BIG air compressor. It had at least a 1500 gallon air tank attached that had to have the water that condensed in it drained each day. Next I would prime the Water Pump. The Air was used to run the first Whale spout as you entered the cove and the wince that originally pulled the Whale along it's track. Also attached to the end of the wince was a cam switch setup that sequenced the Whale once it was stated. The water was used to run the hydraulic pistons that would raise the Whale. What a Whale does: Originally an electric eye would start the Whale sequence as you entered Suicide Straights. Once the sequence was started it went like this: The spout was seen in front of the Whale Shack. It would stop and soon you saw the Whale raising out of the water next to the boat. It was pulled along by the wince and would stop for a minute with water shooting out it's spout. Then it would dive, the wince would start and as the head went down the tail would slip up then go down again in to the water. The wince would now reverse the Whale under water and reset everything for the next boat. In the late 60's the electric eye was replaced by a button in the Whale Shack and the Whale only went up and down. |
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1962
Photo by Marilyn Peters
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1959
Image from Ken Saunders, Park Announcer
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1959
Advertisement in the Daily Item
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 Cannibal
Shack on the Moby Dick Ride, 1959 Photo from Beth Moreton Anderson |
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1959
Moby Poster Donated by Daniel Burbine
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Image
from Mary Mahoney's Scrapbook at the Wakefield Historical Society
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| "One was the famous Moby Dick ride having recently seen the movie on TV and then going to the park, taking ride and have MB come out of the water look right at with all those harpoons in him. Really made an impression on a ten year old. Just too cool for words." Winston S. Stone | ||||||
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Sign
from a boat on the Moby Dick ride from Russ Berube
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| "Yeah, I remember when they changed the pricing to one charge for the day (I think $1.80 at one point), and the steady decline, right up to the day that we ran to get on the Moby Dick ride only to be told that "the whale isn't working, but we can take you on a boat ride". The patter from the pilots faded away, along with some of he little touches, such as the "explorer" in the "native's" cook pot, the charging rhino (he actually moved), the sharks circling, the dolphins...and were there three "natives" brandishing spears? All these touches died before the park did. But my friends and I were approaching 16 or 17 then, and so the decline didn't bother us as much." Keith Sullivan | ||||||
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1960-1962
from Gail Rivers
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| "No commentary would be complete without a few words about our symbol and mascot Moby Dick. Moby was supposed to make hourly appearances during my time at The Wreck of the Hesperus, but he was also racking up some sick time. By the time I was hauling boatloads of happy tourists to Treasure Island, Moby had become progressively more mechanically challenged. For some pretty extended periods, sightings were as rare as, well, seeing a white whale. As I recall, poor Moby also developed a form of Reedy Meadow dermatitis from the algae in the water and took on a faintly green hue prior to his annual fall cleaning." Bill Bell | ||||||
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