Shaw Brothers Construction of Gorham has started work on expanding the International Marine Terminal in Portland and connecting it with existing rail lines.

The company has already moved the dredge spoils that Phineas Sprague, the former owner the waterfront property, had deposited on the site while creating his boatyard, which is adjacent the terminal.

The state paid Sprague $7.2 million for 18 acres of industrial waterfront land it seized from him this spring. In the deal, the state got stuck with a huge mound of contaminated dredge spoils. For the time being, Shaw Brothers has moved the spoils to a part of the site that is not being developed in the near future.

At the Portland Planning Board, planners were enthusiastic about the project, except they didn’t appreciate the aesthetics of the concrete barrier that will separate the facility and West Commercial Street. That barrier will keep the huge vehicles that stack containers on rail cars from rolling into the street.

The Maine Department of Transportation developed a solution: Recessed into the concrete barrier will be panels depicting a map view of the waterfront, circa 1914, delineating warehouses and the extensive web of rail lines on the site. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the yard could accommodate 1,050 rail cars.

The panels will appear to be abstract patterns from the roadway, but pedestrians who take a closer look will be able to see it’s really a map. There will be five different panels, and they will be repeated in a pattern from the existing International Marine Terminal to Cassidy Point Bridge.

MARINER LEADING PROPELLER CLUB

Congratulations to Capt. San Juan “Sandy” Dunbar of Portland, who has been named international president of the International Propeller Club of the United States.

Dunbar is the first licensed unlimited tonnage master captain to hold the post. He says he will bring a mariner’s perspective to the position, which in recent years has been held by landlubbers.

“My ideas all come from the sea,” Dunbar said. “I want to make sure that everyone who runs the Propeller Club from the shore sees through the eyes a mariner coming in.”

Dunbar, 77, will begin his term next month at the club’s 88th annual convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Formed in 1922, the club is a business network dedicated to the promotion of the maritime industry, commerce and global trade. It has 88 local chapters around the world, with 113,000 members. The club is meeting in Louisville this year because of its location on the Ohio River. The club wants to highlight its interest in the nation’s inland waterways.

The Portland chapter, which has about 140 members, meets every month at DiMillo’s Restaurant and Lounge.

Dunbar worked as harbor pilot in Portland Harbor for more than 30 years. He retired 10 years ago and now works as a maritime consultant.

And although everyone in Portland knows him as “Sandy,” Dunbar’s legal name is San Juan. That’s the name he will be using as the Propeller Club president.

“I am trying to get everyone to call me ‘His Excellency,’ but nobody has bit yet,” he said, with a laugh that would be familiar to anyone who has ever met him on the Portland waterfront.

BEACHCOMBERS FIND TRANSMITTER

A floating transmitter deployed in June off the Maine coast drifted up to the Bay of Fundy and came ashore in Nova Scotia on Digby Neck, where it was plucked out of the mud last week by some beachcombers.

Will the original owner please step forward?

The drifter has underwater “sails,” which ensure it is carried by ocean currents rather than the wind. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is overseeing the data collection, according to the Yarmouth County Vanguard, a weekly newspaper that covers southwestern Nova Scotia and reported on the discovery. The newspaper reports that the drifter is the creation of the New Hampshire Science Teachers Association in New England.

However, Paul Williams, the group’s officer manager in Littleton, New Hampshire, said, “We can’t find anybody who knows anything about what the New Hampshire Science Teachers Association has to do with that the transmitter.” .

According to the drifter’s tracking data, its voyage began several miles south of Isle Au Haut. From there, it traveled eastward across the gulf to the southern tip of Nova Scotia, where it met the prevailing current that flows northward along the western coast of Nova Scotia. To see a map of the transmitter’s travels, click here.

The currents in the Gulf of Maine flow in a big counterclockwise circle. If the transmitter had managed to avoid getting snagged in Nova Scotia, it probably would have floated farther northward into the Bay of Fundy before turning southward and heading along the New England coast toward Cape Cod.