Douglas Rock, a submerged hazard to navigation in Vineyard Haven, is getting a new warning marker after its original signpost broke off in late summer.
The spile, which dates from 2001, may have suffered a collision or simply collapsed from age, Tisbury harbor master Michel Gately told the Gazette last week.
“It could have been an impact, or fatigue,” he said.
The damage was reported by boaters, he said, and the broken stake itself now poses a risk because it sticks up above the waterline.
“You’re equally as likely to hit the piling as the rock,” Mr. Gately said.
A bright orange ball is serving as a temporary marker until the new one can be installed, he said.
Last Tuesday, the Tisbury select board authorized a $6,500 fund transfer for the project, which Mr. Gately said he expects will cost $9,500, with the remaining $3,000 coming from harbormaster department savings.
A boulder about the size of a Volkswagen bug, Douglas Rock lurks invisibly off West Chop, never breaking the water’s surface — yet close enough, especially at low tide, to inflict costly damage on boats.
The late Vineyard Haven resident and sailor Francis (Pat) West, Jr., who was born in 1906, recalled run-ins with the rock from the late 1920s to recently as the year 2000.
“Last September I hit the rock again. I was trying to find it,” Mr. West told the Gazette in 2001. “It is kind of a shock to hit the damn thing. You don’t expect any rock around there. It is very deceiving.”
The boulder went unnamed until 1999, after Mr. West had campaigned for more than two years to have it included in Coast Guard navigational charts.
Mr. West and Hugh Schwarz, who joined him in lobbying a series of municipal agencies to win approval for naming Douglas Rock, had intended to honor Robert S. Douglas, who built the topsail schooner Shenandoah and founded the Black Dog Tavern on Vineyard Haven harbor.
But the U.S. Board on Geographic Names — the final authority — doesn’t allow commemorative names for living people, so they fell back on Mr. Douglas’s father, former secretary of the Air Force and deputy secretary of defense James Henderson Douglas, Jr. (1899-1988) who had summered with his family in West Chop for more than 25 years. (Robert Douglas lived on until 2025.)
Although the board’s approval cleared the way for Douglas Rock to appear on navigational charts, it would be another two years before a warning sign would mark the spot for mariners.
The Coast Guard declined to fund a marker, but issued a license to Tisbury to set one up at its own expense.
Locals — not just from Vineyard Haven — chipped in to make it happen. Ralph Packer donated the spile and Edgartown dock builder Steve Ewing donated time and equipment to install it at the rock, where the warning sign went up in April, 2001.
Mr. West was there to see it happen and, when he died the following year at 96, his obituary noted the pride he had taken in having Douglas Rock named and marked.
Mr. Gately said he’s planning for the new marker to be installed by Mr. Packer’s company next month.