I met Lloyd about 1990. Inspired by a decrepit Skimmer on Clary Lake, a friend and I built an iceboat out of muffler tubing with a blue tarp sail.
In a gale of wind it went fast enough, the downside being that after a wreck it was impossible to beat it back into alignment. I have forgotten
how we connected, but Lloyd came to my farm to view the boat, sat in it, tested the tiller, and was very diplomatic in his appraisal.

I was doing business as Organic Heavy Bulldozing, specializing in digging farm ponds and cranberry beds, and clearing farmland, using large elderly
bulldozers. These could be bought cheaply and would pay for themselves on the first or second job if they didn’t break down. They had to be home repaired,
and I bought several old RR box cars to store parts and tools in. The truck driver who delivered the cars said that he also had an iceboat, which had sold at
the Brunswick Air Base auction, and for which he wanted $200. It was then under some bushes in Calais, having belonged to the rec department of the
Winter Harbor base. It turned out to be a Nite, #86, sloppily painted blue over a red gelcoat, with a riveted label reading “Property of the US Navy.”

After paint removal and a new sail, I brought it to the Roberts’ Heron Beach, and for a number of winters afterwards parked it there, Chickawaukie being
the hot spot of Maine ice boating. I often sailed alone, with Lloyd keeping an eye on me from his shop. But the most memorable sail was on Sebago after the
excitement surrounding the resurrection of the stern-steerer Slipper. It was Lloyd’s idea. The ice was perfect — mirror smooth but with grip —and the northeasterly
wind was steady and occasionally strong enough to lift a runner. The Nite and Lloyd’s Northeaster Raven were perfectly matched, and the runners ran silently.
We sailed on and on, mesmerized, until, when almost out of sight of land, it occurred to us that it would be a very long push back, following our runner tracks
in the dark, if the wind died with the last of the sun. So we came about and the wind stayed true and carried us back to Nason’s Beach, empty but for a few groggy
stragglers loading up their DNs.

My father, Henry Bunting, died at 42, when I was 9. He was a pathologist — as was Lloyd — and de facto small town emergency doctor. He and Lloyd
were of similar build and temperament, both with dry humor, broad interests, multiple practical skills, and highest character. (Dad had also been a ski jumper
and skate sailer). It is said that when a child loses a parent they spend they rest of their life searching for a replacement, and perhaps it is so — there were surely
ways in which Lloyd served in that role to me. It does not seem possible that Lloyd and I were only ten years apart in age — thirty would seem about right.
Lloyd is greatly missed, with my thanks for all that he brought to my life.

Bill Bunting