PORTLAND, Maine — A strange boat, perched atop three metal legs, was standing just off East End Beach on Wednesday morning.
The site drew dozens of curious onlookers. Many said it was a welcome distraction from anxiety over the presidential election the previous day.
The long cylindrical legs, resembling pier pilings, held the boat aloft several yards out of the water. The flat-bottomed vessel sported twin propellers and two crane-like arms. It appeared to be deserted.
“I want to say it has something to do with oil drilling,” said Stephanie Heinz, who was walking her dog Pepper along the shore. “It looks like a miniature oil rig — but that can’t be right.”
Just then, a man passing Heinz threw out an idea.
“It’s Trump. He doesn’t waste any time — you know, drill baby drill,” the man said, in jest, referring to the president-elect’s oft-repeated slogan.
A woman on a bicycle thought the contraption might be used for pulling boat moorings. Her companion disagreed, saying it was too large for that purpose.
Robert Wood of Portland stood nearby, shading his eyes and looking at the boat.
“It’s a jack-up barge,” Wood said, as a matter-of-fact statement. “You see them all the time down in Louisiana. They use them to work on pipelines and stuff.”
According to the website Marine Insight, a jack-up barge is a floating barge with movable legs attached to its hull. The legs can be extended and retracted vertically. Once they make contact with the sea bed, the barge is lifted out of the water, making a stable working platform.
“Jack-ups are one of the most common types of offshore platforms, with over 700 barges in service as of 2019,” the website states.
Wood grew up on Casco Bay, on nearby Long Island, and said he’s spent time working on Gulf Coast fishing boats, netting herring. He speculated the barge might be in town to help repair damage from last winter’s global warming-fueled storms which ravaged infrastructure up and down Maine’s coast.
“They’re building seawalls all over the bay,” he said.
A phone call to the office of Portland’s Harbor Master confirmed part of Wood’s theory.
Deputy Harbor Master Hattie Train said the barge was doing work with the U.S. Coast Guard somewhere on the Maine coast.
Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Matthew Bartnick confirmed as much, stating the barge was completing regular maintenance on aids to navigation around Casco Bay, including tending to buoys and day beacons.
Bartnick also said the type of barge is an uncommon sight on the East Coast.
“I called the captain [of the barge],” Bartnick said. “He told me they’re quite a spectacle, wherever they go.”
