The shack on Furtado’s Wharf was the pilothouse of Albatross II. [2016, Dunlap]
Illustration shows how an elevated pilothouse gives passengers in the cabin below a view over the bow. Drawings were generated by A.I.
Windows in the cabin were covered during renovation. [2016, Dunlap]
Entrance to the shack. [2016, Dunlap]
Ladder to the sleeping loft and the head. [2016, Dunlap]
From inside the pilothouse, now a sleeping loft. [2016, Dunlap]
The pilothouse-shack before renovation. [2011, Town Assessor]
[2016, Dunlap]
Updated on 24 August 2026 | One of Provincetown’s quirkiest maritime vestiges hides in plain sight at the end of Furtado’s Wharf in the West End, out beyond Sal’s Place. It is the elevated pilothouse of Albatross II, a party fishing boat that was owned by Charles Jerome Hurlbert (1860-1940) and skippered by Capt. Albert J. Avellar (1894-1962). Albatross II was wrecked during the Hurricane of 1938 — if not two years earlier — and left aground on the West End Breakwater (though some sources say Race Point).
That was not the end of its story, however. At the time, Manuel “Ti Manuel” Furtado (1879-1945) was building summer rental shacks out on his wharf. These rudimentary accommodations offered a nice supplement to the income from his boatyard, 99-101 Commercial Street. For the shack at the end of the wharf, Furtado salvaged the pilothouse of the Albatross II.1 You can still recognize the double-decker shape of the structure. It’s now Pier Unit 3 of the Nathaniel Hopkins Condominium, and was owned until 2022 by Bryan Rafanelli, a celebrated events planner, and his husband, Mark Walsh. The unit has 124 square feet of space. What was the elevated pilothouse was turned into a sleeping loft. Presumably, Furtado made some adjustments on the spot, since the ceiling height in the pilothouse is only 4 feet, 1 inch.
1 “Furtado’s Wharf and Boatyard,” by Yvonne Roderick, Provincetown Portuguese Festival 2015, Page 15.