A Scientific Debunking of Billy Bob Faulkingham’s Fishy Tale of Rogue Wave, Angelic Rescue
Wet Hot Christian-Nationalist Summer, Chapter 2
Have you read Chapter 1 yet? Check out The Christian God Punishes Maine GOP Leader for Breaking Child Labor Laws, Lying about Boat Wreck here.
Also, this Crash Report is so damn long because every single one of the hundreds of other media stories about Faulkingham’s boat capsizing take him at his word. This detailed debunking will leave NO DOUBT in a thinking person’s head: Faulkingham is lying about why, how and where his boat sank.
Before getting to the alleged freak wave that destroyed the Maine House GOP leader’s lobster boat, a quick history of his vessel: Known as 51, she was launched in 2010. The 40-footer was named for the basketball jersey number of Faulkingham’s cousin Adam, who died in a car accident as a teenager many years ago. In 2021, the 51 was hauled out of the water and given a stem-to-stern makeover. That meant lots of body work, new paint and the re-powering of the 51 with a brand-new $80,000 750 horsepower John Deere engine.
Even though the 51 is named for a fella, btw, the vessel is still referred to with “she and her” pronouns. Also, for the record, most maritime folks believe it’s bad luck to name a boat for a dude. And, up and down the Maine coast, some mariners believe a blue-painted boat is also jinxed. While I’m not sure of the legitimacy of such superstition, please note that before the 51 sunk, her upper parts, including the cabin roof, the bow and gunnels of Faulkingham’s male-identifying vessel were painted blue.
In Episode 12 of my Disinfomaniacs podcast, you can hear Faulkingham’s rendition of his tall tale, in his own voice, via news reports and from an extended radio interview he gave three days after sinking the 51. To save you an hour of listening, here’s a synopsis of HIS version of events:
A little before noon on Sept. 15, 2023, Faulkingham and his sternman were headed back to the mooring after a short day of hauling. The weather had been nice and the sea conditions calm, even offshore where some of the Winter Harbor lobster fleet were still hard at work. Hurricane Lee was slated to arrive in the Gulf of Maine the following day, so the Coast Guard had issued a warning to local mariners to stay away from spots with breaking waves and surf. Despite that mariners’ warning, according to Faulkingham, he stopped for just a second to watch the waves breaking on the Turtle Island Ledges.
He left out a major detail. About 20 minutes before his boat sank, he wasn’t lobstering. He’d been friggin’ around in the surf, off Schoodic Point, a couple miles from where he sank. We know this because a local photographer was down on the shore and took several pics of Faulkingham’s boat playing in the surf.
Even if you don’t have any experience on the water, it’s pretty obvious that a prudent mariner wouldn’t be doing what Faulkingham was doing in his lobster boat, especially in light of the Coast Guard warnings about the coming hurricane. And especially considering Faulkingham’s maritime history. The state rep sank his previous lobster boat TWICE before this incident we’re discussing. (Remember, as I mentioned in Chapter 1, the vast majority of fisher-people never sink a vessel once, let alone thrice.) With that #FAILSON background, you’d think Faulkingham might exercise a little bit of caution when he’s behind the helm.
Nope.
The photographer sent the images to Faulkingham, who also happens to be their state rep. “I don’t think he was amused,” the photog told me. “I have photos of both guys taking pictures, making me wonder if a driverless boat was safe in those waves. It was the ONLY boat I've ever seen in that area when there was a surf warning. Definitely the only one out ‘wave-watching’ that day.”
In Faulkingham’s oft-repeated version of his tale, though, there’s zero mention of his playtime in the Schoodic Point surf. According to him, they just stopped by Turtle Island Ledges, on the way home from work, for a quick look-see at the wave action.
“And they were kind of cool. They were rolling a little bit. I’ve seen a lot bigger,” he told WVOM-FM three days after the incident. “We were just about ready to finish our way into the harbor when I saw something I never want to see again. I saw a wall of water. I mean, just a huge mountain of a wave. And I don't know where I was gonna go. But I got to the helm and accelerated the boat to try to get away from it.”
The alleged rogue wave, according to the state rep from Winter Harbor, was faster than his 750HP John Deere. Suddenly, thousands of gallons of ocean broke over the starboard quarter. Then, according to his story, the wave pulled down Faulkingham’s trousers and tighty-whities, leaving him bare-assed as the rogue wave capsized the 51, flinging her skipper clear of the vessel.
I’m gonna repeat that and not just for the lulz. Faulkingham claims the rogue wave pulled down his pants and underwear, leaving him half-naked, then capsized the boat, with the stout state rep somehow being thrown free and clear of an overturning 40-foot vessel.
Okay. Sure.
Suddenly, he was deep underwater, with his pants and drawers down around his boots. Faulkingham claimed he looked up and saw a light. He swam towards the luminance above, broke the surface, and was greeted by a sight that must have been a surprise. His recently rehabbed 51, overturned, spewing clouds of black smoke from her stern exhaust, propeller still spinning, her heavily-damaged keel pointed toward heaven.
Despite the surreal scene, Faulkingham had the presence of mind to note (and has repeated many times since) that the salty sea was “bathwater warm.” (The actual water temp on the day of the sinking was about 63 degrees Fahrenheit, about 37 degrees colder than average bathwater.) He credited “the presence of God” for that warmth, though it was probably just a rush of adrenalin. Or maybe Faulkingham pissed himself upon realizing how badly he screwed up.
Or perhaps the bathwater-like sea is how Faulkingham interprets the Gulf of Maine’s rapid warming due to climate change. After all, average water temps off of Winter Harbor are almost five degrees warmer in 2024 than in the late 1980s when he was a kid. Sadly, the Gulf of Maine is warming 99 percent faster than the rest of Earth’s oceans. Which is gonna have a huge impact on the status of future fisheries, lobstering et al. And Faulkingham, who is NOT a scientist, has repeatedly called climate change “bogus nonsense.”
Don’t even get me going on the covid-disinfo and skepticism Faulkingham (a paradigm of good health) spread during the pandemic, all while, (according to state financial disclosure forms) he and his wife took PUA payments for almost two years.
Next, he swam through that bathwater, with trousers and panties around his ankles, amid the chaos of his $80,000 engine’s belching death throes and billowing acrid fumes, making his way towards the 51, through a debris field of crates of banded lobsters, empty totes, backpacks and other flotsam and jetsam from his work life. Then somehow, perhaps with angelic assistance (more on that soon, I promise) he was able to propel himself out of the water and onto the bottom of his overturned boat, where he immediately pulled up his wet undies and sweatpants.
Despite the destruction around him, Faulkingham repeatedly claimed, he felt a sense of calm, serenity and peace.
His hired hand, though, wasn’t as blessed.
According to a knowledgeable source, this is the sternman’s version of events.
“When the boat flipped, it threw Faulkingham out, but the sternman was hit by all the stuff on deck and then got hit by the boat. He got knocked out, briefly, broke his left arm and fractured his left wrist and came to trapped under the boat! He took a deep breath and went to swim out from under it and that’s when he realized his arm was broke. Faulkingham had gotten up onto the bottom of the boat and the sternman started yelling and then swam over and Faulkingham helped him get on. I was in the harbor when Faulkingham’s cousin brought them in and the sternman was in hard shape. Huge gash on his forehead, nose broke, and lots of cuts. Another lobsterman had to hold his arm in place so it didn’t dangle down while waiting for the ambulance.”
Yikes. That sounds terrifying to me. Like many sailors with experience on the high seas, I have a healthy respect for the power of the ocean. (And an obsessive fear of drowning.)
A rogue is a dishonest and unprincipled man.
“I knew rogue waves were real before that, but I've never seen a real one,” Faulkingham told WVOM-FM. “We were in fairly deep water. I feel like we were in probably 50 feet of water. And waves just don't break in that amount of water, that far from shore where we were.”
Before explaining how we know there was no rogue wave, landlubber readers are gonna need a quick primer on the predictability of wave mechanics. Simply put, a wave needs a trigger to break, like a ledge or a rock or a shoal. Otherwise, the rule of thumb is that the wave remains a swell (rolling waves that do not break) until the wave’s height exceeds the depth of the water. (Some say it’s three-quarters of the depth of water, but we’re quibbling here.) Taking Faulkingham at his word that he was in 50 feet of water means the swell needed to be somewhere between 37 and 50 feet tall in order to break where he claimed to be physically located at the time of the incident. For reference, that’s a wave about the height of a four-story building.
(Theoretically, a good lobsterman is always aware of the depth of water beneath the keel. Standard equipment on a lobster boat is a fathometer which determines depth using sound waves.)
So if Faulkingham is to be believed, it meant somehow that a giant, office-building-sized wave escaped the notice of all the fellas still lobstering offshore, plus the sightseers on the shore taking pictures. And this huge wave came out of nowhere, headed up the Mount Desert Narrows and hit nothing else, other than Faulkingham’s boat.
Yeah. Sure. If you believe that, I have a bridge to Matinicus for sale. Real cheap.
Here’s more proof Faulkingham isn’t telling the truth. At the time of the incident, the high tide had just turned and started to ebb, so any “rogue wave” would’ve also clobbered Turtle Island, scarring the beach and/or tossing debris way above the tideline. And, according to locals, there was no sign of any rogue wave damage on the shore above the high water mark.
Also, the generally accepted definition of a real “rogue wave” is a wave twice the height of the average waves surrounding it. So if Faulkingham's alleged rogue wave actually broke at 40 feet, the average wave action in Frenchman’s Bay, at the time, would have to be 20 footers. And we know from the photos from minutes before, over at Schoodic, and from the word of other fishermen and Faulkingham himself, the weather was nice and the sea calm, unless you were in among the breakers. Besides, no lobster boat would be out with a 20-foot chop in Frenchman’s Bay.
So if Faulkingham's tale is scientifically impossible, what caused his boat to capsize and seriously injure his sternman?
Firstly, according to those in-the-know in Winter Harbor, the 51 wasn’t in 50 feet of water like Faulkingham claimed. Instead, he was up inside, right by the Turtle Island Ledges, a known local danger-spot and the location of a tragic father-son death of Ralph and Kenneth Byers in 1975.
The senior Byers was respected as an experienced fisherman, so the story of his death is well-known locally. Plus, the lobster boat races in Winter Harbor that Faulkingham raced on many occasions are named for Byers. Rumor has it that Faulkingham may be competing with his daddy’s boat in this year’s races — the 60th year of lobster boat racing in Winter Harbor — tomorrow, August 25.
One of my extremely knowledgeable harborfront sources explained what happened to the House GOP leader. “Faulkingham was down to Turtle Island Ledge where we have all been told a million times not to go. Two people died there, years ago, in the same exact spot,” they explained. “There are two ledges. The inner and outer breaker. He was right between them and the outer one broke and rolled him over.”
I transposed those annotations onto the nautical chart. The green circle signifies where locals say the 51 actually capsized. The red circle signifies the approximate area where the 51 was recovered. And the black oval denotes the general 50-foot deep area where Faulkingham claimed he was when the “rogue” wave struck.
You can see the Turtle Island Ledges are clearly marked on the chart. Also, there are two asterisks just outside the ledges. (On a nautical chart, the asterisk is a pictograph denoting rocks exposed at low tide.) And, in all likelihood, that’s where Faulkingham was. Just inside those two asterisks and just outside the actual Turtle Island ledges.
This is a very narrow split of ocean, surrounded by known dangers, with a hurricane approaching. If Faulkingham was up inside there, shooting videos for Tik-Tok, and not paying attention while “side to” the surging ocean, a fierce wave breaking on the ledges could possibly flip his lobster boat. Remember, though, Faulkingham claimed to be nowhere near that danger-spot, insisting he and the 51 was in fifty feet of water, a place where waves don’t break.
Forensically, though, the 51’s hull damage tells a more probable scenario than Faulkingham’s fishy rogue wave. According to the boatbuilder rebuilding the 51, there were ten big holes and gashes on both the port and starboard sides (though the starboard was more heavily damaged) plus serious injury to the keel. (More on this later.) To me and other mariners, that amount of damage suggests Faulkingham struck the Turtle Island Ledges or the nearby rocks. Or both.
Touched by an angel?
Sometimes Faulkingham has included the following sub-plot to his retelling that many have found to be creepy, weird and disrespectful. As Faulkingham explained to WVOM-FM and others, he thinks it’s possible an angelic force somehow pushed him up and out of the water and onto to the bottom of his overturned boat. After all, Faulkingham is a very big guy and not in the best of shape.
To make matters worse, Faulkingham even ventured a guess at the angel’s name: Tylar. As in Tylar Michaud, the 18-year-old lobsterman from Steuben who died tragically in the summer of 2023. By all accounts, Tylar was a hard-working striver and awesome young man.
Here is what Faulkingham told WVOM-FM: “I think Tylar was an angel in life. And he's probably an angel right now, doing works for God. He was an amazing kid. And I don't know how angels work. Or how God works with angels. Maybe Ty was the one that pushed us out of the ocean?”
Tylar’s boat, F/V Top Gun had been found adrift and empty near Petit Manan Point in the afternoon of a foggy late July day last summer. The recent high school grad had been tending his traps, working hard and by himself, to earn money to pay for his upcoming first year at Maine Maritime Academy, when he went overboard.
The discovery of an empty fishing boat is always agonizing. In lobstering, an empty vessel usually means the captain’s feet got hung up in pot warp, dragged over the stern into the deep to be drowned by his own gear. That’s apparently what happened with Tylar. The situation was especially sad — and hit the Hancock County’s coastal community hard — because he was a promising young fella, beloved by many.
For a month, his body remained missing, lost-at-sea, which must have been devastating to family and friends. Then, on August 26, another fisherman recovered Tylar’s corpse, floating off Addison, about seven miles from where his boat had been found. A sad relief, in a way, for the grieving family. And an awful reminder of the dangers of working on the water.
All of this to say; why in heaven’s name did Faulkingham think it was appropriate to connect the young man to his own tall tale?And it brings up the serious question no talk show host would dare ask: Why would God save a dubbah like Faulkingham while killing Tylar?
Also, when Faulkingham says “And I don't know how angels work. Or how God works with angels,” he’s a hundred percent correct. Maybe he hasn’t read the Bible, but it’s clear he doesn’t understand the angel concepts described by Ezekiel or in Matthew’s gospel.
(In Chapter 3 of Wet Hot Christian-Nationalist Summer, we’ll go into more detail about Faulkingham’s odd lack of religious knowledge and his frequent Biblical misinterpretation and misappropriation, despite his claims to be a follower of Christ and wanting America to be a Christian nation. And we’ll juxtapose his political actions to how Jesus would’ve legislated.)
Angels, according to Scripture, are not dead humans. (The human-into-angel trope is more New Age or pagan than Christian.) Angels are actually spiritual creatures that, according to the Bible, sometimes look human so they blend in while working undercover on Earth. And they don’t have wings. At least, the human-looking angels don’t have wings. There are some other “angels” with wings, but they’re pretty weird-looking and would be hard to miss. Especially flying down into the waters off Winter Harbor to pluck a hefty state lawmaker from the drink, put him up onto his overturned boat, and then taking off, leaving the sternman beneath the overturned vessel. Simply not Biblical.
If an angel wasn’t responsible for getting Faulkingham up onto the boat, then how the hell did the rotund state rep get out of the water? One theory: Since his lower limbs were tied together by his undies and pants, he suddenly had the same aerodynamics as a mermaid. With a single flip of his powerful “tail,” (aka his bound legs), he propelled himself out of the water and onto the boat. Then, he was able to pull up his underpants and sweats. And like Adam and Eve with their fig leaves, he covered his meat apron.
In God he trusts
After the capsizing, Faulkingham said, he and his sternman were sitting perched atop the bottom of the overturned 51, as she floated safely in calm waters. Always the hero, the state rep removed his salty sweatpants to bandage the multiple cuts on the sternman’s head, including a four-inch noggin gash that revealed skull-bone. The midday sun warmed the black bottomed hull and quickly dried the two men while they awaited the rescuers Faulkingham knew his Christian God would send.
By this point, the 51’s engine was dead and silent. The air was clear and the sky was blue. The blankets of black smoke had dissipated. It had been “like a war scene,” Faulkingham told WVOM-FM. But while waiting for help, he said, the sea was peaceful and calm.
(Calm except for the debris and the fuel and oil in the water. Gotta wonder about the environmental impact of Faulkingham’s mess. Usually when a vessel goes down, the first response is to use a floating “oil sorbent boom” to catch the floating fuels before the petro-chems get absorbed by the water or wildlife. In the case of the 51, though, no booms were ever installed.)
“The first thing I told [the sternman] was ‘You're gonna be alright. We’re gonna be alright. God is with us,’” he told the rapt WVOM-FM radio hosts. “I didn't used to have faith like this, but I've been building my faith and having a relationship with God. And I know that it was really important in that moment, because I felt like God was with us. I know God was with us. And I just started praising him and thanking him for being alive. Thank you God! We praise you God! We love you God! Thank you for keeping us alive. Please keep this boat safe. Please get some help!”
It’s his constitutional right, of course, to believe whatever he wants. And I know religious folk find solace in praying. However, Faulkingham’s “Thanks for keeping us alive!” praise seems strange. Especially since his Christian God just let him crash into a ledge, destroy his livelihood and hurt his sternman real bad.
“What really happened to the boat is unexplainable to me because as I was praising God and thanking God out loud, I watched all the debris that came off the boat drift towards shore” he told radio listeners,“and drift into where those ledges were. And where those breakers were. And get churned up [sic] in that. And the boat stayed in safe water. And, as a matter of fact, drifted to even calmer waters.”
Arg. Not a miracle. The reason it was “unexplainable” is because this is another example of Faulkingham lying to cover up.
The tide charts says high tide was 11:49 a.m. That means, after a brief period of “slack high water,” the tide starts to ebb, meaning the high tide just started draining at the time of the alleged rogue wave. So it’s impossible, from the “50 feet deep water” location where he claimed to have capsized, that the 51 and his crates and miscellanea would’ve made their way up inside, getting smashed to bits on rocks and ledge.
However, if the 51 was located where we plotted her position on the chart, it is conceivable that the sea surge might have tossed his floating stuff around.
It would be almost an hour before Faulkingham’s cousin Mikey arrived on the scene. Must have been tough for the sternman. Poor fella was still in shock. Bloody, dazed and very confused. After all, he’d suddenly been knocked unconscious, then awoke beneath the 51. Had to swim his way out, with a broken fin. Now, with Faulkingham’s dirty sweats wrapped around his head wounds, the sternman sat on the overturned boat bottom. Shivering. Wondering WTF?
Later, Faulkingham gave the chain-of-response responsible for his “rescue”: The 51’s EPIRB radio transmitter signaled Coast Guard Boston who called Faulkingham’s wife who called the the co-op manager who put the call out on the radio and phone. And Mikey came flying in from offshore and saved the day.
The actual rescue op went amazingly smooth, thanks to the oddly calm weather. Without another rogue wave in sight, Captain William Robert Faulkingham and his one-man crew abandoned ship. According to the House GOP leader, they didn’t even get their feet wet while stepping from their roost on the overturned hull onto Mikey’s boat.
Talk about miracles!
Five minutes later, Faulkingham was ashore, awaiting medical attention for his minor boo-boos and an ambulance for the seriously-concussed and injured sternman, who sat with another Winter Harbor lobsterman, who held held his double-broken arm in place.
Meanwhile, with nobody watching, the 51 sank to the bottom, where she’d sit for a week.
How did the 51 stay afloat until help arrived? Was it another miracle? Faulkingham claims so, though there are other theories. Faulkingham’s hefty bulk, for instance, acting as top-side ballast, unintentionally kept the hull-holes above the waterline. Conversely, air trapped in the engine compartment or below deck or in the bilges could’ve added buoyancy to the overturned vessel. When he and his hired hand got onto Mikey’s boat, the 51’s load shifted and the holes took on water and down she went.
A scenario that was probably enhanced by the wake left behind by Cousin Mikey’s boat. Because once the rescued men were aboard, Mikey backed down, came about and gave it to her, hard. He’s got a big engine, according to Faulkingham, that goes 40 knots. So Mikey’s boat’s wake was probably the last straw, spoiling the calm and giving the 51 a wavy push to the bottom, where she spent the next week until being re-floated with airbags.
Of course, this is all speculation, because only two people (Faulkingham and his sternman) know for sure. And since Faulkingham has proven he is NOT a reliable narrator, that just leaves the sternman as witness. And he declined several requests from me for an on-the-record interview. For awhile, we were friends on Facebook. He’s since deleted his account, but not before sharing a major clue on his perspective about the whole damn incident.
About three weeks after the sinking, the sternman posted this fairly gruesome photo of his face. All stove up, to put it mildly. It appears the picture was taken in the hospital, just after being rescued. I’ve looked at this portrait often. These surface wounds are pretty grisly and we can’t see the internal impact of the broken bones and head trauma. But it’s no question: the sternman is lucky to be alive. Hopefully, the injuries don’t plague him for the rest of his life.
The sternman made a single terse comment to accompany the post of his bloody portrait. “Shouldn’t have happened.” And he didn’t respond to any questions from his pals. The post ultimately received 25 likes and 15 comments.
On the other hand, Faulkingham’s FB post about the alleged rogue wave and miraculous rescue, received a thousand comments and 3,000 likes and over 3,300 shares, often with links to a fundraising campaign, shared mostly by religious folk and politicians, most notably Maine’s senior Senator Susan Collins.
Here’s another thing about the sternman. Up until the wreck of the 51, the fella worked as legislative assistant for the House GOP and worked as Faulkingham’s hired hand. Which meant both men had full healthcare coverage, as legislative employees, paid for by Maine taxpayers.
Soon after the wreck, the injured fella quit both gigs, telling colleagues he didn’t wanna work in government any longer. (And, apparently, he never wanted to get on a boat with Faulkingham ever again.) Nowadays, he’s laboring down at the Winter Harbor Co-op, which means he must see Faulkingham on a regular basis. Wonder what he thinks when he witnesses the illegally-employed 14-year-old stern-boy headed out-to-hall with his ex-boss. (More details in Chapter 1 of Wet Hot Christian-Nationalist Summer.
Saved by a NASCAR driver?
Here’s another strange twist to this tale. Back in September, when Faulkingham’s story went viral, someone claiming to be the “Maine House of Representatives” created a fundraiser on the “Give Send Go” crowd-funding platform to help Faulkingham and sternman with “medical expenses and get them back on their feet.” When I started looking into Faulkingham’s story last November for the Disinfomaniacs podcast, $3,547 of the $25,000 goal had been raised via 47 donors, including gifts by several Maine lawmakers.
(This is the 3rd Crash Report that mentions Give-Send-Go, which is sort of a GoFundMe for far-right hate mongers like Shawn McBreairty, who raised at least $10,000 through the site. Neo-Nazis like Hammer-the-chud and street thug-chuds like NSC-131 and Goyim Defense League currently have fundraisers going through the app. Yet the site’s owners claim to be Christian. Yikes.)
Looking closely at the fundraiser page (which has since been deleted, more on that in a second), it’s obvious the campaign was not sponsored by the Maine House of Representatives. First of all, the Dem-controlled Legislature wouldn’t use a chud-fundraising platform. More importantly, though, both Faulkingham and his hired hand had excellent health insurance through their jobs as legislative employees. So who and why was raising money for their medical expenses?
Digging a little deeper, I found a tag on an inner page, showing that the campaign had been created “by” the Maine House of Representatives “in” Fort Kent, Maine. Those details (plus a couple clues from social media) led me to suspect that former NASCAR driver and current GOP candidate for CD2, State Rep. Austin Theriault (R-Fort Kent) was behind the page. I checked with an Augusta insider who donated to the fundraiser and they confirmed Theriault was the organizer.
So I emailed Theriault and left messages at various phone numbers associated with him (including his CD2 congressional campaign headquarters), inquiring if he had set up the fundraiser. No one called back, but the day after I telephoned Theriault, the Give-Send-Go page for Faulkingham was deleted, disappeared forever.
No surprise Theriault took down the Give-Send-Go. He had just begun his quest to win Maine’s 2nd congressional district GOP primary and talking to a muckraker about Faulkingham’s fishy story of divine intervention wouldn’t help his campaign.
(Paid Subscribers will receive a special, secret Crash Report called “Who is Austin Theriault?” during which we discuss the NASCAR driver’s history and his presidential ambitions, despite quitting the Maine Legislature in his first term to run for Congress.)
Gotta wonder what happened to the $3,547 in the Give-Send-Go when the campaign abruptly ended. According to a source in the know, the sternman didn’t get it. And according to Faulkingham’s financial disclosure form filed with the state, there’s no mention of any fundraiser payment. The same goes for Theriault.
(It’s a gray area, of sorts. Responding to an inquiry by me as to whether the Give-Send-Go income should’ve been disclosed, the assistant director of the Maine Ethics Commission wrote, “because it was from a group of individuals, rather than one single individual, which is an exception to the [reportable gift] definition. The Commission would require additional information before responding to this question.”)
Regardless, the fundraising proceeds were small peanuts for both of ‘em. These days, as the GOP candidate for CD2, the Trump-endorsed Theriault has raised a couple million bucks. As for Faulkingham, a mere $3,500 ain’t gonna make a dent in his financial woes.
That cash would’ve helped the sternman, tho. Any cash would’ve.
A brief aside about insurance and boats. As you’ll soon learn, Faulkingham had “hull insurance” which paid him a couple hundred grand when the 51 went down. (He apparently still owed some money, though, on the 2021 rehab of the vessel, so only what’s left over was going to pay the boatyard for the 51’s current re-build.)
More importantly, for the sternman, is the fact that Faulkingham didn’t carry the “Protection and Indemnity” insurance which covers accidents occurring at sea. “P & I” pays 3rd party expenses related to maritime mishaps. The coverage is optional and expensive. Most legit lobstermen, though, consider “P & I” just another cost of doing business because the insurance covers their “independent contractor” sternman in case of catastrophe while working out-to-haul.
Which meant, post-sinking, the suddenly-jobless sternman was severely injured and unable to work. And because Faulkingham didn’t have P&I, there was zero compensation for his troubles. His only recourse: to bring his former boss to court to pay for his pain and suffering. Since blood can’t be gotten from a stone, though, is it even worth suing a heavily-mortgaged and suddenly income-less Faulkingham?
Back in November, there were rumors from the State House corridors that the former sternman had retained an attorney. As of this writing, however, there haven’t been any lawsuits filed in Maine’s courts in connection to the injurious incident.
Down at the Boatyard
It was the end of September 2023 when Faulkingham’s 51 was finally settled in her new crib at H&H Marine in the Washington County town of Steuben. H&H co-owner Eric Moores and two of his guys spent an entire weekend ripping the 40-foot lobster boat down to her bare bones. Total demolition of decks, bulkheads and cuddy. Everything, including the busted keel, removed. Nothing left, when they got done with her, besides the skin of her hull. The EXCLUSIVE Crash Report photo below shows the 51’s interior after two weeks of patching, but prior to the installation of the new keel.
An almost-new hull, practically. But in the eyes of lenders, insurers and any future buyers, the 51 will always be known as a sinker who sank. Which will make her actual value far far less than what Faulkingham will spend to get her seaworthy.
“It is a crazy rebuild,” Moores told me back in April. “But I’m saving him money by not building him a new hull.”
That’s true. A brand new forty-footer, built by Moores for Faulkingham would cost about $485,000. Moores’s initial quote to Faulkingham for the rebuild would be around $300,000 and, at the time of our conversation, he had guesstimated that would be done mid-to-late summer.
When we spoke in early-spring, the rehab of the 51 was at a standstill, because they were still awaiting delivery of the “new” engine, a re-built 550 HP John Deere, a step down from Faulkingham’s previous, now-destroyed, 750 horse. The down-powering was a fiscal decision, according to Moores. The engine’s $35,000 price tag, in today’s marine marketplace, was practically a steal.
“With the price of everything going up,” Moores explained, “taking the dropdown in speed and power makes sense even if it takes an extra hour to getcha where you were going.”
However, in late spring, Moores (who was already fighting cancer) had a heart attack. Then, in July, the lead boatbuilder on the job resigned to go back to working as a sternman.
Plus, the new engine still hasn’t shown up at the boatyard. As of early August, the re-built John Deere was still sitting in a shop in Columbia Falls located 18 miles from H&H. Waterfront chatter says there's a messy divorce somewhere in the chain-of-command, slowing down the 51’s re-powering, thus slowing down the whole damn job.
The good news, though, is that the 51 has a keel again. Before the lead boatbuilder quit, he and Moores worked together to install a new keel. It’s tough to explain how big of a deal this is, in terms of boatbuilding. It’s a major operation, for sure, especially doing the job in a small coastal Maine boatyard. Luckily, I found some video on Facebook of the actual team rigging, then installing the new keel into the 51. And let me tell yah, those are some real good boat-repair skills, for sure.
And here are some photos of the 51 — exclusive to the Crash Report — from July, showing her slow progress. The new cabin roof was a salvage job from another vessel. That big gaping hole the in roof, btw, will be fixed once they get the engine installed.
With the rest of the job on hold awaiting the engine’s arrival, the 51 is currently just taking up space in the shop. Once she’s re-powered, though, the real work can begin. Gears, propulsion and electrical. And re-building, from scratch, decks and bulkheads, from stem to stern. There’s also still some body repairs to finish, plus the inevitable odds and ends. Then she needs to be 100% re-outfitted, since everything was destroyed when she visited the ocean bottom. From new electronics to safety gear, nothing comes cheap. Not to mention the nickel-dime final costs like hauling the 51 back down to the shore for re-launching or filling her brand new and empty fuel tanks with diesel.
In other words, still lots left to do (and pay for) before she gets her final coat of paint. Which raises more questions. Will the GOP House Leader keep the possibly-jinxed white and blue color scheme? And will Faulkingham replicate the 51’s original flag-waving decorations? As seen in the photo below, from the 51’s prior rehab in 2021, a US flag is painted on the starboard bow. Backwards, though, as if it’s flying in the wind. On the port side, also “wind-blown” is the Marine Corps flag, because Faulkingham served as a Marine reservist for 3 years.
Painting an American flag, btw, on the bow of a vessel is a flag code violation. According to flag code, American flags are to be flown from the stern of a vessel in port or aloft underway. Not to be painted, backwards, on the bow. A flag code violation, though, is the least of Faulkingham's worries.
As the wiseacres like to say, “A boat is just a hole in the water you pour money into.” The final total — due to delays and ancillary costs — keeps going up, with gossips predicting somewhere between $350,000 and $400,000 just for the 51 to get back in the water and lobstering.
According to Moores, Faulkingham said he received $200,000 insurance payout and still had some outstanding debt on the 51 to pay for the stem-to-stern pandemic-era rehab in 2021 and re-powering with the now-dead 750 John Deere. Also, as Moores explained to me, in the boat-repair-and-insurance-company system, the boat owner receives the check, not the boatyard doing the work. So that would mean that Faulkingham got paid 200k (less the pre-existing debt) to pay for a boat reconstruction that’s gonna cost a whole bunch more.
How the heck is he gonna handle the rest of the bill? According to his financial disclosures filed with the state, his sole source of income (in addition to his legislative pittance) is lobstering. (Plus whatever his wife earns with her home-based sales gig with a MLM skincare company.)
And, as we know from Chapter 1, Faulkingham is currently not catching many lobsters. And when he does borrow his old man’s boat, he seems to be just dubbing around. Making some vids and quitting after four hours, then paying his underaged stern-boy fifty bucks.
In terms of the stunt’s price tag, because Faulkingham claims “commercial fishing” as his sole source of income, we also have to factor in lost earnings in the total cost of sinking his boat. How much is that for Faulkingham? Only he and his Quickbooks knows for sure. Like we explained, the fella isn’t a high-liner. That being said, at certain times of year, even a dubbah can make money catching lobsters. I’d estimate that Faulkingham has the potential to clear $75k annually, unless he’s even lazier than previously thought.
A Lazy Man Lobster(ing)
Perhaps the best way to judge someone’s work ethic, down on the shore, is to take a look at their wharf, scow and dooryard. If it’s a mess, then, usually, they’re a dubbah. To be a high-liner making good money requires a certain degree of order and discipline. Pictured below is Faulkingham’s wharf and fishhouse in Winter Harbor, a couple dozen steps from the Co-op. Whaddya think?
Another sign of laziness downeast are piles of traps in need of fixing, cuz they ain’t catching lobsters sitting on the dock. Most fisher-folk I know would be embarrassed to leave their wharf in such disarray overnight, let alone for year(s).
Also, I’ve examined these photos of the dock from a laborer’s perspective. Yikes. Talk about disrepair and danger. The missing planks are indicative of neglect and poor maintenance. The untouched stacks of lumber seem to signify the unfulfilled intent to replace the missing and rotting planks in the dock.
Like I said, a real dubbah.
Plus that shack is a fire hazard, chock-full of ignored “to do” lists, abandoned ambition and failed dreams. (Or old pot warp and bags of trash.) Mouse-infested, for sure. Unless muricidal wharf rats ate the mice. Not fit for anyone, not even as an Air B and B. Not even for a sternman!
Faulkingham bought the spot in 2019 for $155,000 after the Winter Harbor Lobster Co-op declined to buy it, due the high price, the dock’s crumbling condition and the lack of vehicular access. “I can’t imagine that wharf would survey for over $100k,” one fisherman told me.
Other than the existing structures, the tiny lot is unbuildable because of shoreland regulations. And there’s no ROW to the road. Which means other than running a fishing biz, or a spot to land your skiff, the wharf is worthless. Because you don’t own access to the road, you’re relying on the kindness of abutters just in order to walk to the dock on dry land.
Luckily, for Faulkingham, Machias Savings Bank doesn’t seem to view the wharf through the same realistic lens. According to the Hancock County Registry of Deeds, in March, Machias Savings Bank loaned the House GOP Leader $233,000 on his 1/10th of an acre property. That was, apparently, in addition to the balance on the existing $155,000 note to buy the dock, which was also held by Machias Savings.
And, according the insurance clause in his mortgage, full replacement coverage is required. Several waterfront observers have told me that the property is basically un-insurable at an affordable rate. Due to the dock’s rundown condition, rising sea levels, extreme weather events and a lack of fire suppression equipment, plus Faulkingham’s bad luck, the monthly premium would be outrageously high.
Considering current interest rates on a 15-year note, it appears Faulkingham is paying about $2,000 a month to borrow that cash. And that’s not counting property taxes and insurance. Also, if he takes 15 years to pay it back, looks like he’ll pay approximately $125,000 in interest over the life of the loan.
Yikes. Even just using rough numbers for his vessel repair, his lost income, the new mortgage and interest on the wharf, it’s clear that the alleged rogue wave fiasco will probably cost the state rep from Winter Harbor over a half million bucks. At least.
And I’d hate to see the bill for future insurance premiums for the 51 when she’s back in the water. Coverage is not going to come cheap.
Dubbah is a Dummy
For the purposes of this debunking, I’ve consulted with over a dozen maritime experts — from captains to sternmen to Coasties and other sailors — about the veracity of Faulkingham’s narrative After being provided with the basic details, everyone was in agreement: Nope. Not a chance. Something smelled fishy.
Beyond all the wave mechanics and alleged location and rogue wave details, the basic fact remains: lobster boats go out in all sorts of weather and don’t capsize. Unless, of course, the skipper does something stupid. Like crashing into a ledge while trying to get a vid for Tik-Tok.
The lobster boat’s classic wide beam and higher bow design has been storm-tested for decades. The dependable stability of the rugged vessel is one of the major reasons for Maine’s successful lobster industry. Every day, unless it’s blowin’ a gale, hardworking Mainers are out on the water, hauling gear and making money in horrible weather and waves AND DON’T CAPSIZE. Especially getting flipped on a nice day by a rando freak wave. It just doesn’t happen.
Also, I couldn’t find anybody who thought rebuilding the boat was a good idea. Except the boatyard owner. Paying big bucks and borrowing lots of money for a “brand new old boat” didn’t make sense, fiscally or fishing-wise.
The overall consensus was that the state rep from Winter Harbor should’ve used his insurance payout to buy a nice secondhand lobster boat, so he could get back to work, catching lobsters and making cash to support his family. Then later, when he can afford it, upgrade to a new boat. That’s what a thrifty and smart Yankee conservative would do.
I agree wholeheartedly. Ever since I started looking into Faulkingham’s situation, I keep seeing used lobster boats for sale. Lots of ‘em. And some very good deals out there. Affordable boats in great shape, all ready to go out-to-haul tomorrow.
A couple of my maritime experts suggested that, perhaps, Faulkingham was resurrecting the 51 purely for nostalgic reasons. The vessel, remember, is named for his long-dead cousin. Not to be a jerk, but I’m not sure Faulkingham can afford such sentimentality. Especially since the sinking was the result of him screwing around.
A stinking mess
See those eight crates floating in the lower right corner of the photo below? Each holds about a hundred pounds of Peekytoe crab (aka rock crab) whose claws are usually considered a delicacy. Not these crabs though. They’ve been tied up to Faulkingham’s scow since the day before Faulkingham sank the 51. For an unknown reason, in the months following, Faulkingham ignored those eight crates of crabs. At some point, the crabs died, en mass, starving to death in the crates. By March, they stunk to high heaven, according to those downwind of Faulkingham’s scow.
Not to get all preachy, but I’d say such ignoring the crated crustaceans was sinful, wasteful and weird. Faulkingham definitely could’ve used the thousand bucks he would’ve made from selling ‘em. Or someone from Winter Harbor would’ve appreciated the chance to cook and pick ‘em before they died. Probably get at least 40 pounds pounds of delicious crabmeat, with a retail value of at least $1,600.
As of late July, as you can see in the photo below, the crates are still tied to his scow. The good news, for the summer folk, is the stench is gone. Probably just empty shells left in those crates, especially after the sea fleas and other scavengers were done feasting on rotten crab meat.
Thankfully, the scow looks a tiny bit neater now than back in March. According to waterfront sources, Faulkingham’s brother was seen aboard the float, trying to straighten out his big brother’s mess. Also, I’m getting reports from down on the shore that Faulkingham’s buoys are all kelped up. You can barely see his buoy colors. Which makes it difficult for others to identify the buoy. Just another sign of his slackadasical and lazy lobstering.
Gotta wonder how Faulkingham spends his time these days. After all, Legislature is closed down for summer. And he only occasionally goes out-to-haul. Although I’ve also heard reports that he’s been bringing “out-of-staters” out for boat rides on Gramp’s Bird. Let’s hope that’s not for hire, because the state rep doesn’t hold the required six-passenger license to bring folks out sight-seeing, whale-watching or for content creation.
His new gig as homophobic faux-scout leader can’t require too much effort. (In Chapter 1, we discussed Faulkingham’s founding and leading of a local chapter of an anti-gay, alt-scout troop called Trail Life USA that was founded in response to the 2014 decision by Boy Scouts to welcome gay youth into scouting.)
Since his boat is still in the shop and he’s got nuthin’ to do, like a dubbah, he’s posting vids on his new Tik-Tok channel. The latest was filmed in his vehicle, in a grocery store parking lot, wearing a red hat that says “Make Gas Cheap Again” while complaining about the high price of everything and how the Democrat’s un-democratically coronated Kamala Harris as their candidate. Also, he wonders why he’s seeing people wearing masks in public. And, he repeats hate bait, on the regular, like when, in a recent vid, he said gold-medal winning Olympic boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria was a man. (And that was many days after that lie was debunked and determined to probably be part of Russian disinfo efforts.)
Facts, as it’s now pretty damn clear, never get in Faulkingham’s way.
In Chapter 3 of Wet, Hot Christian-Nationalist Summer (our final chapter on Faulkingham, PRAISE THE LORD!!) we examine how his newfound religiosity and being Christian-Nash impacts his legislative activities as the Maine GOP House Leader. And as the mega-series Wet, Hot Christian Nationalist Summer continues, it’s only gonna get stranger, with more weird-grifting lawmakers with super-natural beliefs and guns. Lots of guns.
Paid subscribers get early access to Chapter 3 and bonus content like “Who is Austin Theriault.” Sixty bucks a year (or six bucks monthly) you can support my writing and journalism that goes places that others won’t.
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Shit. That sternman got pounded but good. :O
Seems like this rabbit hole goes REAL DEEP, don't it?