What's in a Name?

Recently I was asked for information concerning the Starstream originally being called CAPTAIN JACKS STARSTREAM. What they wanted to know, where did the name 'STARSTREAM' come from since it may be one of the most unique and 'catchy' names ever used for a party boat.

Well I am very fortunate to go right to the source who would know, the legendary Long Island fishing Captain Richie Kessinger, who filled in many of the blanks. Now I hope I have this story and spelling of names correct since we are trying to remember facts from over half a century ago (besides sometimes my hearing is not to good either).

It originally started when a Captain 'Jack' Levens approached a deep pocketed fishermen who not only loved to fish, but also wanted to be involved in the party boat business at that time, circa post World War II. Captain Jack who at that time ran the Aloma, happened to be noted as a top bay fishermen from the Freeport fishing area. He approached the fishermen Harry Berkowitz with an idea of him buying a party boat so he could always fish on it with Captain Jack running it.

It turns out a wooden boat was eventually purchased and the first Captain Jack came about having great success in bay fishing over the next few years. It also turns out that a Captain Al Lindroth when he was a younger, worked for Captain Jack Levens, prior to his going into the Army. Captain Al after coming back from the Army later worked and then owned the Freeport based Viking 7 (their was a VIKING 3, 4 & 6) before building the current steel Captain AL in the sixties.

Over the years from the fifties and sixties, a total of 4 boats had the Captain Jack designation, the first being the Captain Jack IV a 45 footer, and the second the Captain Jack VI a 65 footer. During this period, Captain Jack Levens was in a serious automobile accident and was taken in and cared for by the family that owned the Captain Jack boats. A Captain Cliff came along before a new captain a few years later came around to run the Captain Jack boats.

Captain Richie then became the new captain for the Captain Jack fleet. He wanted to change the Captain Jacks tradition of fishing in the bay for flatfish, to now regularly fishing outside of Jones Inlet for bluefish, mackerel and most of all codfish.

At the time their was a some skepticism in the mind of the family which owned the boat that this would be successful, but Richie felt that their was a strong bluefish trade along the Poop Deck with Captain Artie White's ANGLER having daily large crowds wanting bluefish. No doubt a strong business saying at that time, "Stay in the Bay, and never lose a day", was in the back of the families mind when RIchie first mentioned this new business model.

He said that within a weeks time The Captain Jack was carrying the overflow from the Angler, and quickly built up a very loyal following easily making the transition from the old Captain Jack from being noted as a good day bay boat, to one that was a good daily ocean going party boat which fished for bigger game fish.

Eventually a bigger vessel was needed due of the crowds of fishermen that would come down to fish with Richie, and they bought Captain Charlie Smallman's 83' YANKEE SKIPPER in the late sixties (around late 1968/1969) which happened to be in Sheepshead Bay at the time.

As Richie told me, the 83' footer which was originally built during WWII as a Coast Guard cutter, was a sleek, fast modern vessel that had a very quiet running and dependable twin Caterpillar d342 engines which gave it a cruising speed of 13 knots. It had rolling chocks on the chines (supposedly to reduce the roll of the vessel when it was underway) and was a relatively comfortable boat, but like all converted sub chasers built during the post WWI and WWII period, they were known to heel over hard in beam seas to where deck would almost go to a point where it was going to touch the water. It did turn out of the noted sub chaser style fishing vessels of the time, this was one if not the best one built.

Unlike in Sheepshead Bay, boats out in Freeport and Captree were typically named after the captain who owned the vessel, a tradition that was carried for decades from those two ports. Captain Richie felt that they should separate themselves from the whole Captain 'so and so' name commonly found on fishing boats from that area, and would look for a new name.

It turned out he did have a name in mind, one that caught his eye which he had read in the newspapers. TWA which was one of the biggest airlines at that time was running a special night flight during the early 1960s to Puerto Rico on a Boeing 707. It was called the 'StarStream' flight, noted for serving steak and champagne, with ads stating, "STEAKS TO ORDER" as the selling point of getting on this flight.