Iconic Regional Businesses: Cape Cod

Marylou's, although popular on the Cape, is a South Shore brand. Never hurts to lead off with a Lou, however... especially a Sagamore one.

(Check out our SOUTH COAST and our SOUTH SHORE versions of this article. Same intro, different businesses)

Life has bounced me from Boston to Quincy to Duxbury to Worcester (back) to Duxbury to Monponsett to Cape Motherlovin' Cod. I've seen them come and go, friend.

One thing that I noticed as I hopped around was that some business chains I got used to in one spot would either not exist in another spot, or some other product in the same field would be dominant in this new region.

I'd also see businesses that started in one spot springing up everywhere. That's always nice to see, especially with something you grew up loving... it sort of affirms your sense of good taste for you.

One other phenomena I'd see is that, while my friends and I might favor one particular local place or another, we'd have a regional default option. To use an example with a powerful business not born of these parts... we both might want a burger. I like Schmuckburgers over on Main Street. You like Ye Olde Slaughtered Cow on the State Road. However, there's always McDonald's.

Massachusetts is a funny place. We like things a certain way. There is an impressive list of otherwise nationally prosperous franchises who flop in Massachusetts. Pizza Hut, Papa John, Little Caesar and Domino's all struggle in Massachusetts, as locals often prefer their town's House Of Pizza. Locals laugh, especially near the coast, if you ask where the Red Lobster is. You might get punched, especially in Italian neighborhoods, if you ask where The Olive Garden is. IHOP and Krispy Kreme may be the biggest names crossed off of the Dunkin' Donut's hit list.

Today, we shall examine a few businesses which have that sort of regional recognition. Some people explore the world. Some people explore regions of it. If you are a regional tourist, look at this as a sort of Bucket List. You should be familiar with all of these businesses we are about to discuss, You can get your Local card pulled, otherwise.

Someone who never went to the Cape as a kid might not know the Thompson's Clam Bar jingle, while someone from Harwich might think that Peaceful Meadows is a pet cemetery. View these places as a sort of Mendoza Line. Thompson's never expanded regionally, and Peaceful Meadows might be an ounce of Swagger away from being listed down below.

I broke this list up by Barnstable/Plymouth/Bristol County, although it could very easily be Cape Cod/South Shore/South Coast. I had to stretch up to Mansfield to fatten the South Coast category, but it's still Bristol, babe.

Here we go...

Barnstable County

Cape Cod Potato Chips

Cape Cod Potato Chips were first made in Hyannis, in 1980. The guy who founded CCPC had a $3,000 potato slicer, and had taken a one-week class in potato chip-making.

They use a kettle (as opposed to a conveyor belt like other chip-makers) to produce a crunchier potato chip. They were very unique in the industry when they appeared, and the business blew up like the Maine. Kettle chips are very prominent now, much because of CCPC.

They were bought out by Anheuser-Busch in 1985. They bought it back in 1996, before selling it again to Lance Inc. They do $30 million annually in sales. At one point, they were selling 80,000 bags of chips a day.

You might break off a tooth if you get one of the bottom-of-the-kettle chips, but there are worse reasons to go to a dentist.

Cape Cod Baseball League

Cape Cod doesn't have a monopoly on minor-league baseball. You can drive to Pawtucket and see higher-level minor league ball. Maine has the Sea Dogs, which is a cooler name than those used by any other local team. Brockton has or had the Rock Lobsters, and Plymouth has a team.

However, to paraphrase Ric Flair... if your team isn't in the Cape Cod Baseball League, you're playing catch-up ball, no matter what you tell yourself.

You're also sort of shorting yourself if you're on Cape Cod and not checking out a CCBBL game now and then. They've been in business since 1885, and are as integral to a proper Cape Cod vacation as swimming and lobster rolls.

They have ten teams running from Wareham to Harwich, and the season starts on June 10th.


Four Seas Ice Cream

Four Seas (not 4 Cs, that's Cape Cod Community College) Ice Cream has been in business since 1934. Cape Cod has always had a sweet tooth, even during the Great Depression.

Four Seas ranks highly on a national recognition scale, as many tourists have made sometimes daily trips to Four Seas a part of their vacation routine.

They were a seasonal business for some time, but they began selling ice cream to various shops and restaurants, and demand soon brought about year-round work.

Cape Cod Creamery also merits a mention in this field... but when they were naming ice cream after Cape Cod towns, they gave us Bourne Butter Pecan. I can't forgive that kind of slight.

Try to not eat Chappaquidick Chocolate Chip when driving, especially with people from Hyannis Port.

Christmas Tree Shops

If you want to see a man's facial expression collapse, get one trapped in a car and bring up the prospect of a "quick" stop at the Christmas Tree Shops. Dude may throw himself out onto the pavement at 65 mph.

However, mention it to your girlfriends when you all just cashed paychecks, and you have a pretty good night out planned... as long as said plan involves a stop somewhere for vineyard-based fortification.

Girls still are the primary arbiter of where the spending money gets spent, which is why the Christmas Tree Shops expanded all over the region, and why there is 24/7/365 sports programming on the telly back home where the husband hopefully got to stay.

The CTS was founded in Yarmouth in the 1950s, and- like Four Seas- was a seasonal business for a while. That all changed, and, well... Don't You just Lovvvve A Bargain?

You can bring your dog into the CTS, as long as it's one of those wussy purse dogs. Don't show up with your Rotty, and an eager Border Collie could do thousands of dollars worth of damage in there.


Barnstable Municipal Airport

They got a TV show out of Cape Air, which trumps almost everyone (see Captain Phillips, below) on this list.

Founded in 1928, it spent World War II being used as a base for anti-submarine planes. It is now Cape Cod's major airport.

You can land a 727 there, something I was not aware of.

Cape Air has a 91 plane fleet, including 83 Cessnas.

If you want to enjoy island life on Martha's Vineyard or Cape Cod without the getting-on-a-boat stuff, you're going to have to visit the Barnstable Municipal Airport.

Business picks up in the summer, as is often the case with Cape Cod businesses. Be sure to file a flight plan and stuff.


Massachusetts Maritime Academy

The Massachusetts Maritime Academy is only one small college, but it has a ripple effect throughout the globe. They touch a lot of businesses, as Harvard does. However, MMA guys get their hands a lot dirtier than (most) Harvard guys do.

Founded in 1891, MMA cranks out Merchant Marines. They then spread out to an untold number of businesses, shipping their products across the seas.

In that sense, the single-entity MMA is actually like a McDonald's or something similar. It's just that, instead of franchising out hamburger stands, they franchise out their developed talent to anyone

Speaking of McDonald's... unless all of those Chinese-factory-made Happy Meal toys float over to America on tsunami waves, there's a good chance that you can't even run a McDonald's without a few MMA grads.

Grads include Captain Phillips of Captain Phillips fame amd Emery Rice, who is credited with firing the first American shot of World War I. Rice also picked up a Navy Cross for ramming and sinking a U-Boat.

We'll buy him a pie from Monument Beach House Of Pizza for that!

Iconic Regional Businesses: South Coast

Be sure to check our SOUTH SHORE and CAPE COD versions of this article. Same into, different businesses.

Life has bounced me from Boston to Quincy to Duxbury to Worcester (back) to Duxbury to Monponsett to Cape Motherlovin' Cod. I've seen them come and go, friend.

One thing that I noticed as I hopped around was that some business chains I got used to in one spot would either not exist in another spot, or some other product in the same field would be dominant in this new region.

I'd also see businesses that started in one spot springing up everywhere. That's always nice to see, especially with something you grew up loving... it sort of affirms your sense of good taste for you.

One other phenomena I'd see is that, while my friends and I might favor one particular local place or another, we'd have a regional default option. To use an example with a powerful business not born of these parts... we both might want a burger. I like Schmuckburgers over on Main Street. You like Ye Olde Slaughtered Cow on the State Road. However, there's always McDonald's.

Massachusetts is a funny place. We like things a certain way. There is an impressive list of otherwise nationally prosperous franchises who flop in Massachusetts. Pizza Hut, Papa John, Little Caesar and Domino's all struggle in Massachusetts, as locals often prefer their town's House Of Pizza. Locals laugh, especially near the coast, if you ask where the Red Lobster is. You might get punched, especially in Italian neighborhoods, if you ask where The Olive Garden is. IHOP and Krispy Kreme may be the biggest names crossed off of the Dunkin' Donut's hit list.

Today, we shall examine a few businesses which have that sort of regional recognition. Some people explore the world. Some people explore regions of it. If you are a regional tourist, look at this as a part of Bucket List. You should be familiar with all of these businesses we are about to discuss, You can get your Local card pulled, otherwise.

Someone who never went to the Cape as a kid might not know the Thompson's Clam Bar jingle, while someone from Harwich might think that Peaceful Meadows is a pet cemetery. View these places as a sort of Mendoza Line. Thompson's never expanded regionally, and Peaceful Meadows might be an ounce of Swagger away from being listed down below.

I broke this list up by Barnstable/Plymouth/Bristol County, although it could very easily be Cape Cod/South Shore/South Coast. I had to stretch up to Mansfield to fatten the South Coast category, but it's still Bristol, babe.

Here we go...


Bristol County

Honey Dew Donuts

Honey Dew and Marylou's make a tough dollar fighting for coffee sales (Honey Dew doubles down by going after the donut market, too) on the home turf of Double D. Honey Dew has fought hard enough to scatter 165 locations around Massachusetts.

They started in Mansfield, are now based in Plainville, and they own interior Bristol County. They have done a very good job of establishing themselves in Boston. Dunkin' kicks the spit out of them, but the people who like Honey Dew better are a loyal and dedicated bunch.

You can survive quite nicely like that, especially if you make a decidedly different donut than Double D does.

No one said it was easy, but Honey Dew is faring well enough for themselves. I want to see them cross paths with Marylou's somewhere, just to see who wins.


Gaspar's

Gaspar's is the largest manufacturer of Portuguese smoked sausage in the USA. Most of this is via their sales of Linguica and Chourico.

They have been whipping out the sausage for 4 generations from their Meat Mecca on Faunce Corner Road in North Dartmouth. They started in 1923.

Linguica is smoked sausage, made from smoke-cured pork, garlic and paprika. It is the go-to meal for any Portuguese person, but white people can shovel it down, too.

In Brazil, it is served with rice and beans. In Massachusetts, it is generally sliced open and grilled.

IMHO, it's the best pizza topping.


Minerva

You could very easily scratch out "Minerva" from the heading, fill in "Rose & Vickie's" or "Venus Cafe" and pretty much tell the exact same story. Someone of Southern European heritage starts a pizza joint, has some luck, wins over the locals and expands somewhere in the region.

Minerva started out in 1969, in Wareham. They carved out a nice niche serving Wareham, Onset and Marion. They expanded west, into Fall River, and east, into the Cedarville section of Plymouth.

Rose & Vickie's has Manomet, Cedarville and Marion. The Venus chain, which numbers all of their franchises other than the original Venus Cafe in Whitman, also has the Venus II in Brant Rock and Venus III in Hanson.

I have friends who eat 7 meals a week easy out of the Cedarville Minerva. They eat enough that their dog, Joe Biden, has grown accustomed to it. He eats enough of it that we re-named him "Joey Takeout."

"Joey Takeout" sort of morphed into a joke among my friends and I, and we work Joey Takeout references into our phone conversations... always with ominous overtones that are funny if you know that Joey Takeout is a ragamuffin Shih-Tzu dog and not the dangerous Sicilian mobster who we make him out to be.

Granted, this is a lot funnier if you have reason to believe that the police are tapping your phone. Somewhere in Plymouth, there is a police file on a non-existent gangster with transcripts like "Joey Takeout gets a bite out of everything coming into the White Cliffs."

Titleist

Golfers know all about Titleist golf balls, which enjoy a fine reputation among golfers and have been spoken for by many of the great ones.

Titleist got started just like every other business did, even yours... a MIT grad missed a putt, blamed the ball, had his dentist friend X-Ray the ball, and then transitioned a rubber-making company into golf ball production factory. They did $1 billion in sales in 2003.

Titleist, originally the Acushnet Process Company or something like that, is now based in Fairhaven. Staying true to their Original Recipe, every single ball made by Titleist is X-Rayed to ensure that the center is balanced.

The cursive "Titleist" logo scrawl on the golf balls belongs to Helen Robinson. She was a secretary for the Acushnet Company who was known for her exquisite penmanship. They gave her a pen and a scrap of paper, she hit it in one take, and her writing has appeared on every single product that the company has produced ever since. Her writing has appeared on more balls than Jasmine St. Claire.

I think that this is Helen Robinson. She looks like she was about to get taken off to see the Wizard.

Trucchi's

William Trucchi opened a supermarket off Tremont Street in Taunton with $500 that he borrowed from his parents. The Great Depression went down shortly after, but Italian grocers don't get Depressed! Especially in Taunton!

They have six stores scattered from Taunton to West Bridgewater to Abington to Middleboro to New Beffuh.

This is no mean feat in this age where a Super Wally opens down the road and every business nearby dies.

Angelo's, A&P, Shaw's, Star, Purity Supreme... supermarkets come and go, change names, and all sorts of stuff. Trucchi's keeps trucking along.


Fishing

The port of New Bedford is America's leading fishing port, with landings valued at $369 million. They have 30 wholesale processing plants, and employ 4400 people.

New Bedford lands 117 million pounds of product, including 50 million pounds of scallops. During the height of the season, 500,000 pounds of scallops move through New Beddy in a day.

Gloucester has the Gorton's Fisherman and the George Clooney movie, but New Bedford has the money. The port, and the economic activity associated with it, haul in $1 billion a year.

New Bedford has whatever you need to get fishing done. New Beige has chandlers, ice houses, welders, net designers, boatyards, gear builders, engineers, maritime attorneys, insurance brokers, settlement houses and every other conceivable shoreside marine support business.

They also have pretty girls hanging around the docks while we were shooting.

Milk Truck Crash On Herring Pond Road

Expect delays in Southern Plymouth as a Garelick Farms milk truck has crashed into the forest off of Herring Pond Road.

Police are posted up on either side of it. Traffic is slowed, but this is a relatively isolated road. It may take them a while to get it out of there.

There could be some power line difficulties, so if your power is out in Cedarville, that's why.

If you're expecting your milk delay in Bourne or Wareham from Garelick's, you may be waiting a while.

Be careful with the police. This cop below was losing his mind. I saw him throw a punch at a truck driving by him, while screaming "MFer!!!" at it. I think he would have done a foot pursuit if he wasn't the waving-cars-past-him cop at a dangerous accident site.

I'm sure the target of his rage deserved it. I could never be a cop. I'd shoot someone. It's why I don't teach anymore... I have issues with patience.

Anyhow, that's why I have rotten photo angles and so forth... he was grilling me as I drove by. I like the cops to be pleased with me, so I parked the car somewhere safe, walked back and took the horrible pics you see here.

Pizza Wars: Monument Beach Pizza

Bourne Pizza Wars: Monument Beach Pizza

Representing the M-O-B 

(Editor's Note: Monument Beach Pizza is under new management, although he strove to keep things basically the same. I don't know if he looks like slim Kevin Smith or not.)

This column is forever in search of the best pizza on Bourne. It is a never-ending quest, as Bourne covers a lot of ground, and different regions of the town swear by different pizza shops. The Bourne Pizza wars are fought on battlefields both on the map and in the tummy. The battle you read of today was fought at Monument Beach Pizza.

We feel that the local House Of Pizza restaurants are reflective of the community. Leave the sushi joints to the inland yuppies. People like that get nothing but a beating in Monument Beach.

Man must eat, and more = merrier. Go down to Hyannis if you want a piece of tofu on a lettuce leaf served by some emo college kid. Go down to the Em Oh Be if you have a rumbly in your tumbly, and order your food from some local who looks like a more-in-shape Kevin Smith.

"Kevin" gets props early in the article, because he scored some points for his employer early in the meal. There were a couple of autistic kids in the MOB when we were there, and he happily allowed one of them to whale away on the cash register a bit. It made the kid happy, even though Kevin's register may have had $387284776013666.99 in sales that day.

This column has long felt that every local kid should work a summer pumping gas, hustling pizzas around, or anything that gets you in touch with a broad cross-section of the public. Kevin passed his test that day, and that was even before he had to process two nosy reporters snooping around and bothering the other customers.

Some restaurant critics prefer to keep a low profile, and stealthily investigate an eatery Phantom Gourmet style. Not me. I like places to be hustling when I dine there, and few things get a crew busting it more than a reporter snooping around.... especially if the owner happens to be managing that shift. I walk in snapping pictures, asking questions, interrogating the other customers, openly discussing the menu, checklisting the kitchen, and whatever else I have to do. I like people to get to steppin'.

MOB (all of the employees and regular customers refer to the place as "the M-O-B" or "Mo Beach Pizza") has been under her current ownership for about 4 years. At various times in the building's history, it was a post office, a general store, a fish market, and a few other things which I'd have in this article if I wrote it the day I went there. The owner insisted upon keeping the building the way it was, a wise decision IMHO.

It looks very much like an old-time general store when you walk in, which is always good for some points with me. You don't want a pizza place where the guy spends too much time decorating. You want a place that looks like a first generation Italian-American allowed his wife in for one half hour only to tidy up and direct the painters.

The crowd there was us, a crew of mechanics, and some COMCAST worker guy.

There are some obligatory old-tyme photos of the building from back in the day, and I have the impression that President Cleveland probably did some shopping in whatever store was in that building back when Bourne was the site of the summer White House.

The menu is of the New England Sub Shop mode, and I think that 80% of the people who go into a sub shop already know what they want anyhow. They did have some unique choices among the specialty pizzas- we saw "Salt Works," which was bacon and dill pickles, and something called the Ronk Steak Pizza that featured au jus sauce.

In the end, we got a Linguica Pizza and Onion Rings. Linguica is an important pizza topping, kinda distinct to Swamp Yankee Massachusetts... a sort of Portuguese Pepperoni. It is popular in the Northeast, on the West Coast (linguica pizza is called Portuguese Sausage Pizza once you go where there are no Portuguese), Hawaii and Japan. Hawaiians call it Portagee Sausage, and McDonald's serves it with their breakfast menu there. 

Onion rings are more world wide, but we tend to get them a lot because my boyfriend is all into them. No one knows who invented the onion ring (recipes in print for fried onions go back at least to 1802), but A+W popularized them nationwide in the 1960s. They enjoy particular popularity in a swath of New England that runs from Maine through Rhode Island. 

That's a fairly solid New England supper we ordered. I tend to stay away from seafood at sub shops, as I go elsewhere for seafood.

There's a fat slice.

Mo Beach Pizza uses diced linguica, and while I'm not into culinary CSI, I'm pretty sure that they prepared the linguica in-house. While your reporters are from Fairhaven and Duxbury and thus have some bias, we think linguica is probably the best topping.

Linguica as a pizza topping runs the gamut from a sort of ground Alpo-looking topping you see on pizzas sold in places with no Brazilian neighborhoods, to the Mo Beach diced version above, to a strange looking disc you see in places that order it in bulk, to long canoe slices that I actually like best.

This pizza was about 14" (we forgot the tape measure, but I have developed a pretty good eye for these things by now), Greek (pan) style. I'm told that the New York-style style thinner crust pizza goes about 16". You need to use a knife and fork to eat it, always a positive in mine eyes.

I'm only 5'3" or so, but my boyfriend is over 240 pounds. We finished half of it, although we had appetizers first. We had further reporting to do that day, and couldn't afford to have the lay-on-the-floor-after feast that we may have indulged in at home. It is also important to save pizza so we can report on how it tastes cold. We're that hardcore.

They had very good onion rings, which is important in our judging. There were only about 10 or so (my co-author sneeched one before I could snap a picture... I had to arm myself with a fork and directly threaten him in order to get the whole-pizza shot we're ending the article with), but each of them were thick and battered with love... which looks awful in print, but pay that no mind.

These are the best onion rings in town, although we still have a dozen pizza places to try before I actually hand out a trophy.

Our fellow diners worked the menu pretty well for us, although we didn't put the camera on them or anything. Ideally, we let others eat in peace during the Pizza Wars.

The cable guy had chicken wings, and he was a regular to the point where the waitress just walked up to him and said "Chicken wings?" He looked like a very happy man, as he had a plate full of clucker wings working. I almost went over to mooch one off him, (I would have traded 2 onion rings for one), but we couldn't get ourselves kicked out or anything.

The greasers had a variety of subs, and they also appeared to be pleased with their choices. You can always tell when the food is good if a group of men becomes silent shortly after the food is served, especially if the TV has ESPN on. Usually at least one guy is running his lip, but these guys were mowing silently

We were there at an off hour, but they had a pretty good run of business. The delivery girl (more points) had to go out at least once during our time there, and we weren't there that long. 

Here are a few other things I noticed during my time at Mo Beach Pizza:

- Considerable time, science, and expense went into some mundane elements of the store. You'll notice, in the pictures of the slices, that they use technology to keep the crust from getting too greasy.  This involves a sort of ribbed (sorry, the only other descriptive term that comes to mind is "bumpy") pizza tray and even a ribbed pad in the delivery boxes. They elevate the pizza some, keeping the grease from seeping into the crust while concurrently leeching grease from the bottom of the crust.

Whoever invented that should probably own Obama's Nobel prize, no offense meant to the C-I-C.

- "Mo" and "Monumental" work their way into the menu language now and then.

- The onion rings had their own sauce, known as Boom Boom Sauce.

- Boom Boom Sauce is actually a brand made by Ken's (the salad dressing people), and it is a spicier version of the usual New England onion ring sauce. The owner told me that it has sort of branched out into other menu items, as customers frequently request it on chicken, steak, and, in one case, pastrami.

- I won't out myself or my boyfriend, but one of us liked the pizza better when it was cold.

- The owner figured out we were media fairly quickly, and he let himself be questioned willingly enough. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and it is fun to get a shop owner speaking at length about his craft.

- Mo Beach's main competitors are Prime Time Pizza "up on the highway," and Graziella's, which is over on Barlow's Landing. MBP does have a nice section of the village to themselves, though. They are about 50 feet off of Shore Road.

- Speaking of addresses, Mo Beach Pizza is located at 18 Beach Street, in Monument Beach, which is one of the Bourne villages. Hit them up on the phone at 508-759-3210. They also have a Facebook page.

Examining Wave Attenuation Devices

We're talking Wave Attenuation Devices with Fred Dorr today.

Remember, I'm a sportswriter by trade. My entire expertise on the matter we're discussing today boils down to:

1) I grew up on a beach

2) The house was on a seawall

3) I therefore have a base knowledge of waves-crashing-off-walls

4) Even with no scientific/academic training, I have more experience watching waves hit walls than many people who are authorities on the matter.

It's all downhill from there. My science is awful. I taught Science one year, and the highlight there was when I let the kids handle liquid mercury. I had to throw out and then acquire new versions of 10 school desks.

I mention all this because I'm interviewing someone who works in a field that may spark some interest among coastal residents. This is why I am, from this point on, stealing text wholesale from his website.

Also, I conducted the interview via email. It saves me from taping phone calls like a divorcing couple, and it lets Mr. Dorr speak directly to you, in a sense.

This is also why I am not challenging any of his answers. I'm just showing you some new technology, and you can decide if it will work on Duxbury/Humarock/First Cliff/Horse Neck/Scusset Beach for yourselves.

What is a WAD?

A WAD (Wave Attenuation Device) is a three sided, hollow, concrete pyramid with holes on all three sides and one on the flat top.

WADs do not come in any one size. They are designed according to the conditions at a shoreline site. If, as in the case of Scituate, "they " wanted to deploy WADs at Minot beach, Peggotty, and Humarock, then quite likely there would be three different designs and perhaps three different sizes.

The design and size depend on the conditions at the deployment site. These conditions include ocean bottom, tide heights, astronomical tide heights, storm surges, weather direction, wind speed, storm intensities/frequencies and other factors.

Scituate

The Science of a WAD:

WADs do two things.

First they knock a high wave down to virtually smooth water.

The second thing they do is to remove energy from an ocean swell. They do this much the same way that the aerator on your sink faucet does. If you didn't have that aerator on the faucet the water would come out in a big blast. The aerator only allows the water in the pipe to get to your sink via very small holes. Therefore each of the water streams contains very little energy.

On the ocean side of a WAD array, the turbulent oceanic swells have picked up some sand and carry it in suspension through the WADs.

However, because the WADs reduce the energy of the wave, the sand falls out of suspension and settles on an eroded beach. If there is sand available in the near ocean, if we have a few nor'easter and if we had an array of WADs, we could over a short period of time (1-3 years) have a new dry high tide beach.


Seafood Farming?

In the background are fish havens they resemble WADs except they do not have a flat top or a hole in it.

They are mass produced in three sizes.

They are deployed in small arrays; circles, squares, triangles, etc. They attract fish and promote organic marine growth.

From what I have read they are very effective in increasing a fisherman's catch.

Q)  What makes the WADs better than a conventional Massachusetts seawall (like the Duxbury Beach one in the picture above)?

That's a short question that has a long answer.
1.  Waves under cut the sandy edge  (TOE) of a seawall
2.  WADs knock down high/tall waves to calm water.  When I asked Scott Bartkowski if WADs could knock down a 20 foot wave his reply was we have killed 29 foot waves.
3.  If there is sand available in the near shore up to 300-500 feet then during storms that sand, with the help of WADs, will migrate to the eroded beach and replenish it.
4.  When a beach gets fully replenished, the waves will not reach the seawall.  If a wave cannot reach a seawall there can be no damage to shoreline structures.

Sandwich, MA

Q) How do the WADs not get filled up with sand and stone? Would they be more, less or equally effective when filled or partially-filled with sand and stone?

In the course of doing their work the WADs do not get filled up instead they break the wave energy down into little pieces so to speak and the sand actually moves through the WADs.  If one snap shot were taken of the entire process then you would say that the WADs were filled up with sand.  Go to WADs Work 4 Beaches on face book and look at the video I have posted you will see what I mean.
When a beach is fully replenished then the municipality should get a barge and a crane go out into the sea and move the WADs farther out  and make a larger beach.


What sort of impact-force testing did you do on the WADs, i.e. waves picking up Ottoman-sized boulders (see "Bert's, Plymouth") and throwing them off WADs?

1. When Living Shoreline Solutions does their scientific investigation, they look at what's on the ocean floor, ferocity of storms. storm surge, astronomical tide effect, beach slope and a myriad of other parameters. They design four applicable WADs for a specific beach that will do the job of attenuating "its" waves.   If there are rocks on the ocean floor then the thickness of the wall of the hollow WAD is increased.  Understand that the concrete used is marine grade and reinforced with fiberglass shreds.  As regards to the event at Bert's   I guess my only answer to that is Poo happens.

Ocean Bluff/Brant Rock

Would fish swim into the holes during high tides, get trapped there when the tide went out, and then stink like stank on a hot summer day?  Can you put fish-filters over the holes and not diminish the effectiveness of the WAD?   

There is no need for keep the fish out of the WADs.  The WADS are hollow.  Fish can swim in and out of WADs.  In the gulf coast  LSS makes a series of Fish Havens for commercial fishermen.  They have reported significant increase in their harvest due to the effectiveness of WADS.  WADs are also used to promote oyster growth.


Do you put these WADs where conventional seawalls stand in relation to the high tides, or do they go offshore some?

Duxbury Beach

Generally the WADs are put in the water perhaps fifty to 100 feet beyond the low tide line.  Exactly where depends on a number of factors that are determined by LSS's scientific investigation and the needs of the client.


Is it possible to perform patchwork repairs on WADs somehow?

I am not sure I know what you mean by patchwork repairs.  If you mean to repair a WAD that has been damaged.  I do not know the answer because there have not been any cases of WAD failure in seventeen years.  Caution must be used because the primary market for WADs is in the south and the Caribbean, where there are no rocks.  If you mean can short (25-100 feet) arrays of WADs be put in place.  The answer is yes but the  overall project must contain several arrays because of a cost/profit problem.


This might be silliest question you've ever been asked in this field, but could a town order WADs in different colors if they so desired?

No it is not the silliest but it comes close.  There have been WADs built with rocks imbedded on the top to simulate a nearby breakwater.  I suppose if someone wanted a puse colored WAD array that could be done--at a price of course.

Green Harbor

Do you take any barnacle-prevention measures?  

WADs have three purposes--Attenuate waves, replenish beaches, and provide marine habitat.  I guess that means that if barnacles are going to grow on a WAD the people will have to deal with it.


Do WADs work if the water level gets higher than them?

Extraordinary question.  A swell is essentially rotating water much like a basket ball rolling across a gym floor.  If the bottom of a swell collides with the ocean bottom the swell turns into a breaker.  When a wave breaks it begins to lose its kinetic energy.   Wave height is measured from the bottom of the trough to the top of the swell

Kingston

If an array of WADs is in 12 feet of water and a swell of 13 feet comes by, the bottom of the swell will hit the top of the WAD causing the swell to begin to break.  If the ocean bottom on the beach side of the WAD is less than 13 feet then the swell will really break and lose all its energy.

In the process of losing its energy any sand that was in suspension will be deposited on the beach.  That is like trying to stir a glass of iced tea with five teaspoons of sugar in it.   As long as the tea is being stirred the sugar will stay in suspension.  But, when the stirring is stopped the excess sugar will settle to the bottom of the glass.   That is how a beach is replenished.


What sort of aquaculture can someone perform with a WAD? 

 I know that oysters grow very well on WADs,  I have seen pictures of fish in and around WADs.  In fact two hours after a WAD array was deployed at Negril Jamaica on a barren ocean bottom there were fish "sniffing" around looking for a good place to stay for the night!  I suspect that WADs would make a good hidey place for lobsters


How large of a wave would be required to move a WAD?

The actual answer is no body knows.  In the seventeen years that WADs have been deployed all over the world not one has ever been moved from the place it was deployed.  That is because of its design.  Hollow: water goes through a WAD.  A WAD has slanted sides.  A WAD is a three sided pyramid.  So the water goes up, and through WAD, and can't push it around.

Nantasket Beach

How tall do you make the tallest of your WADs?

All WADs are site specific.  For instance in Scituate, my town.  If the town were to WAD North Scituate Beach, Peggotty and Humarock there would likely be three different designs.  So far WADs have been as short as four feet and as tall as 12 feet.  They have weighed as little as 450 lbs to as much as 21,000 lbs.  I asked Ping Wang PHD University of South Florida who has done some Attenuation testing for Living Shorelines, the following question, "Could a WAD be designed to replenish a beach and at the same time prevent any shoreline damage regardless of the height of the waves.  His very short answer was "YES".


Is one mile of conventional Massachusetts seawall more or less expensive than the same distance of WADs?

Brant Rock/Ocean Bluff

Another fabulous question.  Scituate is or will be building a seawall 700 feet long.  It is expected to cost about $4,000,000 That works out to about $5700 per linear foot.  I have to stop for a moment here.  A seawall is necessary to keep calm high water from flooding the local area.  The concerns of sea level rise can be accommodated with a seawall.  But an array of WADS attenuate the waves.  On the ocean side there might be 12 foot waves.  On the shore side of the WAD deployment the waves might be 6 inches high  The current cost of a double row deployment of WADs is approximately $1,000 per linear foot.  I think that equates to an 80% saving.



Is it possible to buy WADs for personal use like forming a semi-circle in front of your house?

s soon as you said the word "possible" the answer is yes.  BUT you would have to ship them from Florida.  You would not have a choice in shape, because they do not manufacture them in a factory and then ship them from a stock pile.  Living Shoreline Solutions designs a site specific WAD, fabricates the concrete molds in Florida then ships the forms to the site.  Once here local labor assembles the forms and a local concrete company provides the concrete.  Then someone either has to hire a barge with a crane or a very big front end loader to deploy the finished product..  In addition the state owns the water, you would have to get their permission.  From what I understand that takes at least a year.

 I have enclosed two files, which are pictures that I plan to use in the article. One picture is of a seawall in Duxbury, which is what I have in mind when I say "conventional Massachusetts seawall." The other is of the White Cliffs Country Club in the Cedarville section of Plymouth. What could WADs do to stop erosion of those sand cliffs?

I have not yet seen your pix but I know that when it comes to cliff erosion, although WADS have not been used in that particular situation.  I have to add here that no WADs have ever been deployed in the waters of Massachusetts.  I have about 20 years left on this good earth and I intend to use every one of them to get WADs into Massachusetts waters.

Back to your query.  Put WADS in the water the scientifically prescribed distance from the toe of the cliff and if there is sand in the near shore then that sand will be transported to the space between the WADs and the toe of the cliff over some reasonable short period of time.  Perhaps 1-3 years.  In that time the beach level will rise above the height of the WADs and the waves will not reach the toe of the cliff.  If the waves cannot reach the shoreline there can be no further erosion except by the rain.

Again go to WADs Work 4 Beaches in face book look at the five videos for proof that they work.

Roger Goodell Banned From Cape Cod!

Roger Goodell has been on the hot seat lately. Whether it's players punching out women on camera, where-do-I-live-again concussion issues or coaches issuing bounties on players, the NFL commissioner has a lot on his plate.

Recently, Goodell brought about controversy via his decision to punish both the New England Patriots and Tom Brady over some spurious accusations regarding underinflated footballs.

The Patriots had a first round pick- most likely an All Pro caliber player- taken away from them. Tom Brady, in the home stretch of what might be the greatest career of anyone who ever picked up a football, was suspended for a quarter season.

Running the king of sports leagues is no easy job, and there will always be some bumps on the road. As we said, Mr. Goodell has a lot on his plate. Great power entails great responsibility, and uneasy is the head that wears the crown... or however that goes. Cape Cod is sympathetic.

That's why, effective at 9 AM on May 1st, Roger Goodell is banished from Cape Cod.

"It's a complicated legal issue," said Randy Hunt, the state representative from Sandwich. "This is unprecedented. Remember, even Benedict Arnold wasn't banned from America. We had to go back to the Holy Roman Empire, and the concept of an Imperial Ban."

Imperial Banishment involves:

- The banished person (known as the Geächtete, colloquially also as Vogelfreierei, "free as a bird,") loses all of his political rights

- The Geächtete suffers forfeiture of all assets and possessions

- The Geächtete is considered to be legally dead.

- The Geächtete can assume that he will be offered no protection by the law enforcement agencies, and (according to the Wikipedia) "anyone is allowed to rob, injure or kill him without legal consequences." Hunt is working to soften our stance on that one through a series of amendment riders.

Barnstable County Special Sheriff Jeff Perry has been put in charge of the Goodell banishment.

"My plan is to beat the fear of God into him," said Perry. "My deputies have been instructed to, on sight, gaffle Mr. Goodell, physically drag him to the Barnstable County House Of Corrections, lock him in solitary confinement and beat him on the kidneys with tonfas every hour on the hour."

Perry and Hunt, both Republicans, were quick to point out that the ban enjoys bipartisan support across Massachusetts. Conor Kennedy, scion of the famous Kennedy clan from Hyannis Port, stood beside Hunt as he announced the ban. Chatham mayor Em Nonesuch (D) notes that the nautical penalty would be Keelhauling.

Both Brstol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald are also said to be considering the Imperial Ban.

Several local businesses are taking the initiative with the ban, striking before Cape Cod's official announcement. Lambert's Rainbow Fruit, a powerful Massachusetts produce giant with a store in Sandwich, has already barred Goodell from their stores.

"I'd jam a cabbage down his stupid throat," said family representative Jeffrey Lambert. "They'll be calling him Ol' Cole Slaw Head when I finish with him."

from Boston.com

Cape Cod is just a few highway exits away from Foxboro, and we count Bob Kraft among our residents. Bill Belichick has a place on Nantucket, and several of his coaching progeny have places on Cape Cod.

"Remember, Cape Cod is where a guy was pulled out of his car at a county fair and beaten with a baseball bat for the crime of wearing a Yankees hat," said Cranberry County Magazine founder Stephen Bowden. "It's worse with the Patriots. Even the local priest will punch you in the face for wearing a Peyton Manning jersey."

The atmosphere across the bridges is decidedly ugly. Goodell has been burned in effigy all over Cape Cod, and a recent anti-Goodell rally along the Cape Cod Canal culminated with a 15 story Roger Goodell pinata being smashed with a LNG tanker. Instead of candy, the pinata released 200000 bats.

Goodell may not be out of the woods just yet, either. US District Attorney Carmen Ortiz is said to be considering the possibility of prosecuting Goodell for violations of the Patriot Act. "There is some stuff in the small print of the Patriot Act that may beat a path to the gallows," said a spokesperson.

Goodell's spokesperson declined to comment.

Goodell now has a problem that .000000000001% of the world has. Imagine a scenario where Roger Goodell and his rich friends are planning vacations. Imagine how Goodell would have to react when someone suggests the go-to rich person destination of Martha's Vineyard.

"I can't go to Massachusetts. I'll be chased through the streets like the Town Fool."

(uncomfortable pause as Roger looks around the room, gauging his chances)

"Let's go to Indianapolis, instead. I'm like a God there."

Payback Time: Vote to Give Officer MacDonald His Retirement

There is a very important matter up for a vote at the May 2nd Town Meeting that we ask you to consider.

Last year, a man named Adrian Lima murdered an ex-girlfriend and shot the ex-girlfriend's current girlfriend as well. Doubling down, he then fired upon the Bourne Police Department when they arrived to investigate. Lima was eventually taken into custody.

Before they gaffled him, Lima managed to shoot a Bourne Police officer, Jared MacDonald. MacDonald was hit in the back, just under his protective vest. The gunshot resulted in critical injury to MacDonald, and he is now unable to do his job.

Normally, if you get a debilitating injury on the job, the job has to take care of you. It's a no-brainer, one of the chief coups of the organized labor movement spawned during the Industrial Revolution.

However, there are differences between an injured cop and, say, an injured factory worker. The factory worker, if he suffers an injury, can almost always tie it to either employee or employer negligence.... "He stuck his head under a piledriver" or "The shabby scaffolding collapsed." It makes for an easier determination of Fault.

With cops, there is an additional variable. Very few factory workers are shot by crazy people. Police? They sort of dabble in crazy people as a trade. Sometimes, crazy people get guns, and sometimes they manage to shoot a cop.

That doesn't change the scenario much for an injured police officer. He showed up for the job, did what he was supposed to do, but still suffered an injury.  That much is easy. However, his status as a public servant with essentially 20,000 people as his employer means that the town has to vote to give him benefits.

That vote goes down at the Monday, May 2nd town meeting, at Bourne High School. 7 PM, citizen.

This should be a no-brainer. I'm technically a criminal, but I am not only voting for the policeman to get his retirement, I'm writing an article urging you to do so as well. That's a fairly strong endorsement right there, albeit one coming from the proverbial Low Road.

Cops are unique people, tasked with a ridiculously dangerous job. If your baby is trapped in a burning building, a cop will run into the building to get it. If the building has explosives in it, is surrounded by a leopard pen and guarded by ISIL... the cop is still going in. You can argue that with me, but I have a Bourne cop with a bullet in his back as Exhibit A.

You get that sort of bravery for a relatively minor salary... many people give close to as much money to Bob Kraft, Walt Disney or Rihanna over the course of a year as they pay in taxes to employ a cop.

There is a flip-side to that low salary. If the cop gets a debilitating injury, the community should take care of him. If I were a Bourne cop and watched the town vote against giving benefits to a fellow cop who was shot protecting Bourne's citizens... well, let's say that I might wait for some backup before I run through the theoretical Taliban's leopard pen to get that baby out of the burning building.

However, many cops would STILL run the gauntlet after such a vote, but that would be because they are brave, principled or both.... which is even more of a reason to vote to take care of your own.

"Officer MacDonald's retirement needs to be voted on because he was shot in the line of duty making him eligible to receive a specific retirement above the standard medical retirement. This retirement package is the same as other officers in the state that have been shot in the line of duty. This retirement package has to be approved by the town." (Get Well Bourne Police Officer Jared MacDonald Facebook page)

Taking care of an injured cop/soldier/firefighter/EMT is perhaps our most solemn unspoken social contract. They run into Hell to rescue you... you can run down to the high school Monday night (May 2nd, at 7 PM) and cast a vote to show that you appreciate it.

Picture stolen borrowed from Get Well Bourne Police Officer Jared MacDonald Facebook Page