Penny Johnston shrugged her shoulders and moved down the road to Warren when she learned she couldn’t set up her float rope doormat making business in Waldoboro. Although admittedly interested, the Waldoboro Board of Selectmen reluctantly could not commit to Johnston’s request to lease the A.D. Gray building during an Aug. 25 board meeting.
The board decided to further investigate the possibilities, but did not commit to Johnston’s proposal at the meeting.
“We need to know what the precise details are for sure,” selectman Ted Wooster said at the time.
On Sept. 10, the sky was clear and sunny as lobstermen pulled their trucks piled high with cords of multi-colored rope into the yard next to the building Johnston is leasing on Rt. 1 in Warren. She has leased the building to store rope and weave mats for her new enterprise, The Maine Float Rope Company.
“(The doormats) have been selling since spring,” Johnston’s son, Gavin, said. “They’ve definitely been well received.”
Lobstermen up and down the coast of Maine have been exchanging their float rope with the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation (GOLMF) as part of a federally funded buy-back program to help defray the costs of buying required sinking ground rope.
According to Erin Pelletier, Executive Director of GOMLF, the organization collected roughly 1.4 million pounds last year as part of their Bottom Line Project.
“It’s been very successful,” Pelletier said, also commenting on the challenges the law puts on Maine lobstermen.
The foundation gives lobstermen $1.40 per pound of rope, but Pelletier said sinking ground rope costs somewhere near $2 per pound. She said it is costly for the fishermen, because not only do the sinking ground lines get caught in rocky crags, but traps are lost in the process, as well.
Commenting on an economy where rising costs of gear, bait and fuel topple profit, she said the lobstermen still appreciate the reimbursement, but it’s not enough to cover full replacement costs. The impact loss of gear has on their individual businesses stymies their efforts.
“It breaks my heart,” she said. “It’s tough.”
The non-profit organization accompanied the doormat company employees in Warren as lobstermen unloaded truckloads of rope.
Johnston was taking in thousands of pounds for her employees to weave from their homes. Some of the mats will be made at Johnston’s storage facility, as well.
“They’re awesome,” Pelletier said. “The dirt falls right through.”
Pelletier said most of the rope they get goes into making garden trays, though several people have benefited by making and selling doormats.
