Hap Farrell's Slip Is Going to a Captain Whose Grandfather Fished the Same Harbor

After 46 years in the Rock Harbor charter fleet, Capt. Hap Farrell is retiring and asked the town to transfer his slip assignment. The harbormaster said the request didn't meet the transfer criteria. The select board, which has the final say, approved it.

At the end of a summer day at Rock Harbor, the charter boats come home one behind the other, single file up the creek, and the people in the parking lot stop talking to watch. That line has been getting shorter.

Charlie Miller, a former Eastham harbormaster who chartered out of Rock Harbor for 30 years, watched the fleet drop from 19 boats to as few as eight. Chuck Cataldo, whose Fair Lady has been part of the fleet for 46 years, puts the number left at "half a dozen."

Capt. Walter "Hap" Farrell has been one of them for decades. He's had a boat in Rock Harbor since 1978 and joined the charter fleet in 1980. If you read the Chronicle, you've read his fishing column. This fall he's retiring, selling his boat, the Stunmai II, and asking the town to transfer his slip.

A letter to the harbormaster

Slips at Rock Harbor rarely change hands. They're assigned by the town, and its policy allows a transfer only under narrow criteria, such as financial hardship, with the select board's approval. In 2023 the board unanimously refused to let a man move his brother's recreational slip into his own name. "Recreation is recreation," board member Mefford Runyon said then. Harbormaster Nate Sears estimated at the time that about 30 people were waiting on each of the harbor's lists.

Farrell wrote to Sears anyway, looking back on how the fleet had changed since he joined it. "The charter fleet has diminished some since then," he wrote, "and I assume the town will want the service to continue."

The transfer would go to Elise Costa.

Sears said no. In a Sept. 18 letter, he wrote that the request didn't meet the harbor's criteria for a transfer, and that it would need the select board's approval.

The Costa name

Elise Costa grew up in Orleans. Her father runs a charter boat out of Rock Harbor. Her grandfather did before him. She has worked as a mate on the charter boats, and she holds a 100-ton master captain's license from the Coast Guard.

"My goal has always been to carry on my family's tradition of charter fishing out of Rock Harbor," she told the board. She plans to keep running the Stunmai II as a charter.

On Sept. 23 the select board voted unanimously to approve the transfer. Mark Mathison, who made the motion, said the Costa name is "synonymous with Rock Harbor for many people." Kevin Galligan thanked Farrell for the "dignified" way he'd handled it, and said it set an example for the next captain who leaves.

There are 14 slips at Rock Harbor set aside for commercial fishing boats. One of them has just been approved for a new captain.

Next season

If all goes to plan, when the fleet goes out next season, the Stunmai II will be in that line with a new captain, the third generation of her family to run charters from the same creek.

The line is shorter than it was. It's still a line.

Rock Harbor | Rock Harbor Road, Orleans

Charter fishing fleet runs spring through fall. Rock Harbor dockage: 508-240-3755

town.orleans.ma.us