Dear Readers,

You know it. That rusty fishing boat named Westward that has been moored in the harbor for the last year or so awaiting the next appointment on the ways at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard.

Last week, somehow, it broke loose from its mooring and started to drift with the tide.

When you look at it from shore, it looks small; but up close, it is 140 feet or so of steel fishing boat.

Once a boat this size gets going, physics takes over. If it even nudges the shore, it could have wiped out some docks on McFarland’s Point. Or worse.

That didn’t happen because of quick work by lobsterman Billy Hallinan. He spotted the rusty Westward bobbing toward shore and sounded the alarm.

Eric Graves, the manager of the Shipyard, said Hallinan was the guy who notified shipyard workers. Then he and the workers teamed to get a line on the big steel boat and fasten it to his lobster boat Apparition II. As Hallinan pulled and the shipyard’s skiff pushed, they were able to turn it and slowly pull the Westward from the shore.

“We were lucky he saw her and had enough horsepower to pull her away from shore,” Graves said.

Barbara Freeman, a former Boothbay Register reporter who lives nearby, estimated the Westward was just a few feet from her neighbor’s docks.

Whether it was a few feet or a few yards, Westward was awfully close to shore when Hallinan opened up his powerful diesel engine and pulled the Westward away from trouble.

Like a lot of fishermen, the owner of the Westward has done some financial flip-flops trying to get enough dough together to get it fixed up. He says he wants to sail it down to New Bedford and send it back to the fishing grounds. Graves says the boat’s owner has arranged to have it hauled as soon as they finish their current job. Maybe he will be successful. We hope so.

But it would all be a pipe dream if Billy Hallinan had not stepped up last week and volunteered to raise the alarm that helped stop the Westward from smashing onto the McFarland’s Point rocks, the docks, and worse.

When you see him on the street, at the store or having coffee at Baker’s Way, why don’t you stop him and tell him thanks for his quick work.

When you think of it, volunteers like Billy Hallinan make this a pretty good place to live.

They all deserve a big thank you — from all of us.