Locals
Deep Water Man:
Dale Vinette -
Nancy
Mathews
His story reads like
an adventure novel, but T. D. Vinette of Escanaba allows no literary
license in the telling. That's why he chose to put it in his own words.
Better known perhaps for the hundreds of steel and aluminum-hulled
vessels he has built in his North Escanaba boatyard, Dale Vinette
began recording his reminiscences in the early 1990s as a labor of
love, to share his past with his children.
Last year, that series of letters to them about his far-flung
assignments as a commercial and Navy diver from 1934 to 1945 became
Deep Water Man, a 134-page self-published, self-illustrated book.
The saga of those Depression and war years in the Delta
County native's early life shows he's always been right at home on
the water, never far from his roots. He was born in Nahma where his
father had operated a marine dredge for the Bay de Noc Lumber Co.;
during World War I, the family moved to Escanaba where Edward Vinette
ran a general repair and welding shop to support his wife and five
children.
In 1934, a Popular Mechanics article on making a diving
helmet from a 40-gallon galvanized hot water tank inspired young Dale,
an Eagle Scout, to dream of recovering scrap iron from the bottom
of Little Bay de Noc. Realizing that dream not only put cash in his
pocket during the money-tight Depression but launched a fulfilling
career of underwater exploits throughout North and South America and
across two oceans and stood him in good stead financially for years.
"You should like the business you're in and hope
to make a buck at it," he says."That's how it's been with
me."
Not long after his first diving experience, he entered
the American Nautical Academy in Washington, D.C., beginning a life-long
connection with the maritime industry, and was licensed to work aboard
vessels on the Great Lakes and Atlantic coast.
Among his early underwater experiences, he dove for—but
never located—a cargo of Civil War-era gold rumored lost near
Poverty Island between Lake Michigan and Green Bay. Later, he plunged
into the frigid waters of Great Slave Lake in Canada's Northwest Territory
to complete emergency repairs on a commercial gold mining dredge.
Both jobs made the young diver ready cash and a name in diving circles.
Between 1936 and 1942, he worked in the Great Lakes region,
in Florida, Montana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even in Mexico,
repairing dams and dredges, doing marine salvage, serving aboard Great
Lakes ferries and tugs and polishing his skills and reputation.
But it was the war years and his service in the U.S. Navy
that were to test those skills and bring him something more than money
in his pocket. The service added to his training, sending him to the
Navy Salvage School in New York and the Navy's Deep Sea Diving School
in Washington, where he qualified as a Master Diver after only ten
days.
His book reserves a page in full color for sixteen citations
and medals—including the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism
and Silver and Bronze Stars for gallant service. The awards are displayed
prominently in his office at the T. D. Vinette Boatworks, along with
his Eagle Scout citation.
"I'd say I'm most pleased with the submarine rescue
job, although it took me a longtime to realize it," he says now
of the underwater mission that won him the Navy Cross.
"Pleased" is an understatement. In June, 1945,
thirty-three American servicemen had been trapped aboard the submarine
USS Pickerel, grounded on a Pacific reef 320 feet below the surface
200 miles south of Japan, and had been submerged for six days when
Navy Chief Warrant Officer Dale Vinette arrived aboard a submarine
rescue tug. As the only Master Diver on site, he made the initial
dive to survey damage and to prepare the sub's hatch for use of the
McCann Rescue Bell to bring out its crew. It took the diving team
twenty-eight hours and eight descents of the bell to rescue the men.
That memory and other events that won him additional Navy
honors ultimately led to Vinette's book project. The missions were
diverse, dangerous and memorable: underwater demolition in the dark
of night to clear enemy harbor obstructions and pave the way for an
Allied invasion of North Africa; removing magnetic mines from ships
and the harbor in Bermuda; recovering bodies from an exploded ship
at Hawaii; standby underwater duty during off-loading of atomic bombs
at Tinnian Island in summer, 1945, and being trapped for twenty-two
hours under a ship during salvage operations at Guam.
Those memories returned to him in his sleep nearly fifty
years after the events, and his nocturnal ramblings caught the attention
of his wife, Ruthie, whom he'd married in 1971 following the death
of his first wife, Jan. She urged that he record them for his four
children—Joan Vinette and Mary Vinette of Marquette, Ann Rutkowski
of West Bend, WI, and Tom of Suttons Bay—and her three sons—Chris,
Jeff and Dan Branson—whom he'd helped raise.
After publication of his book, family and friends encouraged
him to begin a volume on other aspects of his life since he opened
the boatyard in 1947. There is ample material for another book—about
changes he's seen in the marine industry...about hundreds of twenty-five-
to one hundred-foot boats he's designed and built for private individuals
and firms and federal and state agencies...about the seventy-two-foot
tourist boat that was taken in pieces to the Tahquamenon River on
an ice road and reassembled there for service....
He admits enjoying the process of telling the stories
of his past and is having "too much fun" to retire.
"I've had lots of fun," he says of the writing
project. "I may do it this winter," writing and re-writing
with a laptop computer as he did in the past when he and Ruthie spent
time with friends in Mexico.
With six years' writing and preparation of the manuscript
behind him and a routine that puts him in the boatyard office five
hours daily (he's given over day-to-day boat yard operations to son
Dan Branson), he's still found time to pursue another of his interests—art.
"Artwork is part of my life," he says. "I
enjoy it." It's an interest he shares with Ruthie, who is a watercolor
artist.
From his experience designing and building steel and aluminum
boats, it wasn't a stretch to go to metal sculpture and enamel work.
He makes "heraldic shields" (coat-of-arms) for friends,
liturgical pieces and has created a large enameled bronze map of Delta
County for the county building's exterior. Of late, he's been working
on a smaller scale—miniature metal sculptures, enamel-copper
jewelry and enamel-stainless steel holiday decorations. He also has
begun to carve soapstone and alabaster into detailed pieces. Many
of them go to family and friends as "an expression of warmth
and caring," he says.
From his office overlooking Escanaba's ore docks, he speaks
highly of the skilled captains who guide commercial vessels on the
lakes, noting that it's a well-paid profession for nine months' service
each year. And, he's always ready to help mentor and guide youngsters
who, like a certain Eagle Scout sixty-five years ago, venture out
for a career on the water. If they're as fortunate as Dale Vinette,
they'll have tales to tell their children and grandchildren some day,
too.
—Nancy Mathews
