Boat Story Doesn't Hold Water

FROM THE photo files of the Nassau County Museum, Long Island Studies Institute, come these pictures of a boat under construction, taken by a photographer named Raynor. The captions refer to the boat as the Arlene, and the builder as the photographer's grandfather, Alfred B. Smith.

Doug Shaw, administrator of the Long Island Maritime Museum in West Sayville, says his museum has no records of a Long Island boat builder by that name. There was a Patchogue boat builder named Asa B. Smith, Shaw says, but the boat in the photograph is far bigger and heavier than one of Asa B. Smith's boats.