It takes the "Tiger" to drive wharf pilings into the muddy and sometimes grouty bottoms of Cape Ann's coves and harbors.
Tiger's career — that's 51-year-old Norris "Tiger" Marston Jr. of Gloucester — has flowed from fisherman to flight instructor and aeronautical engineer to owner and operator of a marine company.
Youthful play off Ram Island in the Annisquam River decades ago helped save Tiger's life last year.
"I was born two months early; I was supposed to die, but I lived," Marston says today. "I've had the nickname 'Tiger' since day one. A doctor probably gave me that name because I fought so hard to live."
The Marston clan is big on Cape Ann.
"Chick Norris Sr., and Big Pete (Marston) are all brothers," said Norris Jr., one of seven children. "My dad was from Rockport, and my mom from Taunton. (Growing up) we lived on Ram Island summers for 15 years and winters in Taunton.
"I turned 14 on Georges (Bank) harpooning (swordfish); I turned 16 in the Alaskan crab fishery, and I turned 21 seining herring (off of the Northeast coast)," he said. "I swore when I turned 40 I would never go fishing again. I figured this (forming Marston Marine Co.) was an easy way out, and I would, at least, be home every night," Marston explained.
Between his fishing careers, Tiger managed to earn a degree in aeronautical engineering and become certified as a commercial instrument-rated flight instructor at Emberua Rittle Aeronautical University at Daytona Beach, Fla.
Marston also got to know many of the "Deadliest Catch" crab fishermen during his fishing days, around the year 2000.
"The guys used to live in my barn when they came to Gloucester to fish for deep sea red crabs. I had about 15 guys in my barn," he said.
Tiger began Marston Marine Co. about 10 years ago. His enterprise offers mooring and salvage work, dock building and rebuilding, especially pile driving within the Boston to Newburyport area, and also "... custom restoration of dilapidated buildings on piers," said Marston.
Chad Ketchopulos, Marston's good friend and owner of Under Pressure Construction Co., helped Marston build his catamaran-style barge floated by a pair of 24-by-5 foot wide former military fuel tanks and fitted with a pair of spuds for anchoring and stability and a hydraulic crane used for hoisting and pile driving.
"We got the tanks for nothing, and we also cut the hydraulic pressure digger off of an old utility pole truck and installed this onto the barge (as a crane and a 2,000-pound drop hammer)," said Marston.
He also acquired a 22-foot former herring seining skiff with a 150-horsepower diesel to move the barge. Peter Mullen, Gloucester's father of the first long-term successful herring mid-water trawl fishery, named Marston's little tug "The Rising Tide."
Marston has painted all of his equipment, including his van and outboard-powered tender skiff, orange.
"A Pigeon Cove Harbor lobsterman painted his boat orange, and he gave me the left-over paint. Why not use it? It shows up well, and it looks official," Marston explained.
Marston Marine Co. and Under Pressure Construction Co. often work together on jobs.
"I have all the land-based equipment (including a backhoe and a bucket truck), and Tiger has all the water-based equipment," said Ketchopulos.
"Nobody can come in and put in chaffing piles (pilings) as fast as Chad and I," Marston added.
The pair recently completed a job at Pigeon Cove Harbor that entailed driving down and pinning 13 chaffing pilings along key loading and off-loading areas.
The town of Rockport Harbormasters Department "... contracted me to do the job, and I subcontracted Tiger. The funding came from the Harbormaster's Fund. The majority of that job was done from the barge," Ketchopulos explained. The pressure-treated pilings were purchased through and delivered by BB&S of North Kingston, R.I.
"They are the biggest pressure-treated lumber supplier in New England. The pressure-treated pilings go for about $10 per foot today," Marston said.
Marston and Ketchopulos chain-sawed a pointed tip in each piling before lowering it vertically alongside the wharf and pile-driving it into the bottom, sometimes into grout with the drop hammer, which has 2,000 pounds of recycled lead in it for weight.
"You start out with a tap (onto the piling) and end by dropping the hammer 10 feet at a time onto a piling," Marston said. "It hits hard; the force is 44,000 pounds per square inch. It pushes rocks out of the way." The workers drove the pilings into the bottom in Pigeon Cove Harbor anywhere from 4 1/2 feet to 10 feet.
The three men later bolted the pilings to the top of the wharf with 1/4-inchdiameter galvanized bolts.
"We used an electric hammer drill," explained Ketchopulos. "You drill down 6 inches into the stone. We used bolts rather than brackets. Bolts are stronger, and their piling ends are counter sunk, and they won't catch a boat."
Once driven down and pinned, the pilings were cut to proper height and their exposed tops were painted with a mixture of polyurethane and deck paint.
"This (as a sealer) is about as good as it gets," said Marston, who also came up with the concoction.
Waterfront experts at Pigeon Cove have already given Ketchopulos, Marston and Skinner the thumbs up for their completed project.
The more than 6-foot Marston got driven down like a piling and nearly met King Neptune and his maker last year while cutting apart (with a torch) the steel boat landing of Ambrose Light Tower.
The tower sits in about 200 feet of water about 10 miles off of New York. A boat hit the landing as Marston worked under a stairway, and the "whole boat landing snapped off from the light tower," he said.
"Thirty thousand pounds of steel hit me on the back of my head, knocked me out, and carried me down (entangled in the cutting torch hoses) 80 feet before I came to," he said. "I had been under two minutes before I got clear of the hoses and swam for my life."
While he was entangled, Marston's life jacket unsnapped and floated to the surface.
"Thirteen guys (on a barge at the tower) were looking for me, and all they saw was my life jacket pop up," Marston said. "I figured I was under about four minutes before I finally surfaced. One of the reasons I'm alive today is because I have big lungs. As I went down, the air in them compressed, and as I went up, it expanded making me feel like I didn't need to breathe.
"I'm a diver, and I grew up holding my breath playing underwater games off Ram Island," the Tiger explained. "That's one (the accident) that I shouldn't have walked away from."
Gloucester lobsterman Peter K. Prybot writes weekly for Times about the fishing industry and related issues.
