Working Boats

I have a thing about workboats. Whenever we're near the ocean, I like to prowl the local harbor with a camera. Workboats are one of my favorite photographic subjects, whether they’re pangas hauled out on a beach or trawlers tied to a dock. As a kid, I learned to paddle a canoe and row a dinghy on the Delaware River in northern New Jersey. When I was a teenager, our family vacationed on Lake Ontario where my father and I fished out of an aluminum skiff with a small outboard motor, which he taught me to operate and let me run it into town by myself. As a marine scientist, I worked on commercial fishing boats and research ships from dories and seine skiffs to coastal and offshore oceanographic vessels. While we lived in southern California, I co-owned a 24-ft Skipjack with two diving buddies; we took it to the Channel Islands most weekends from May to October to hunt white seabass and yellowtail. Now I’m relegated to a sit-on-top kayak that I carry on the roof of the truck. Maybe, when we’re settled, there will be a bigger boat in my future.

Cruising yacht in Point Hudson Marina, Port Townsend, Washington

The boat above clearly isn’t a workboat; rather, it’s a well-kept cruiser with handsome lines that's based on commercial lobsterboats from Down East Maine. The workboats are about three times as long as they are wide with a semi-displacement hull, high bow, flat stern and a modified keel inherited from their sail-powered lobsterboat predecessors. They’re stable in rough water, hold a course in following seas and have plenty of room aft to work (link). The lobsterboat design, which goes back a century, has been adapted to coastal cruisers and offshore sportfishers (link; link). The main difference between lobsterboats and their pleasure boat cousins is fit and finish; lobster boats are spartan, pleasure boats aren't.  

Fishing vessel American Eagle in dry dock in Ballard

Puget Sound is a great place to see working boats when they're not out to sea. Walk around the waterfront of Salmon Bay in Seattle or the boat harbors of coastal towns and you’ll see workboats of all sizes and purposes loading and unloading at docks, hauled out of the water on cradles for outfitting and repair, or transiting the locks in Ballard to and from Puget Sound. And so I did, walk around that is, to take some pictures. The fishing vessel American Eagle (above) was hauled out for repairs in Ballad. It's a 118-foot stern trawler with a 30-foot beam (190 gross tons) that fishes in the Bering Sea (link).

Pacific Fisherman shipyard in Ballard

I walked down docks with No Trespassing signs, into shipyards where everyone wore hard hats, and along railroad tracks to avoid entrance gates. I smiled, said hello to the men (always men) I encountered and no one told me to leave.  

Catcher-processor Starbound in Salmon Bay for repairs

Catch-processor Starbound in Salmon Bay for repairs

The Starbound (above) was built in 1989 and is owned by Aleutian Spray Fisheries, Inc. It's 240 feet long with a 48 foot beam (1533 gross tons) and works as a catcher-processor in the Alaskan pollock fishery in the Bering Sea. This is the largest American fishery harvesting over 2.5 billion pounds a year, about one-third of all U.S. seafood landings (link; link). When was the last time you ate pollock? If you've eaten fish sandwiches or fish sticks or imitation crab, you've eaten pollock. There's a company video on YouTube (link) where you can see Starbound in operation.

Private yacht Red Cloud in Salmon Bay 

The Red Cloud was built in 1942 as a tugboat for the U.S. Navy in WWII and was active until 1974. It was sold in 1987, renamed Tom and used as a commercial tug until 2008. It is 100 feet long with a 28-foot beam (194 gross tons) and has been restored as a private yacht (link).

Ferry from Port Townsend arriving at Keystone on Whidbey Island

In 2014 I saw an article in the New York Times with a picture of the Western Flyer covered with barnacles; the caption said it was in Port Townsend (link). This is the fishing boat that John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts chartered in 1940 for a marine collecting trip to the Sea of Cortés. Steinbeck wrote about the six-week, 4,000 mile voyage in The Log From the Sea of Cortez, which turned the Western Flyer into a literary icon. Port Townsend is a half-hour ferry ride from Whidbey Island, where Rande’s parents live, so we walked on the ferry one morning and went to look for the old fishing boat.

Port Townsend waterfront

Port Townsend is a small town (pop. 9,113 in 2010) on the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula. George Vancouver recognized it as a safe harbor in 1792 and named it Port Townshend for his friend, the Marquis of Townshend. It became a city in 1851 and was a well-known seaport by the late 1800s. Speculating that the town would be connected by rail to Tacoma, Port Townsend underwent a building boom and the population increased to 4,500 in 1890, a 400% increase from 1880. The railroad never arrived and the population declined about 40% by 1920, although it remained an active seaport for commercial fishing and shipping, including timber (link; link). Some of the mid-19th century buildings and Victorian-style houses have been restored and the historic downtown is a National Historic District (link).

Interpretive sign at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op

We walked off the ferry in Port Townsend and headed into town. It was early and only a few shops were open. We stopped at a gift shop on Water Street and asked the owner about the Western Flyer. “Oh, you mean Hemingway’s boat?” I explained that it was “Steinbeck’s boat.” “I heard it’s in town somewhere” she said. While Rande perused the shop, I walked down Water Street. I passed an open door; a man was sitting on a stool in front of an easel painting a colorful skiff from a photograph taped to the canvas. Paintings of rowboats and sailboats hung on the walls of his small studio/gallery (link). He was quiet spoken and about my age; we talked about our lives while he worked. He said the Western Flyer was in the shipyard next to the main harbor, but it wasn’t well marked. Rande and I caught the trolley to the north end of town and walked to the shipyard.

Western Flyer in Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op building at Boat Haven

Western Flyer

We found the Western Flyer in Boat Haven in a large hanger-like building with a Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op sign hanging on the wall (link). The boat is propped upright on wooden and metal braces with a set of stairs leading to the deck. My first thought was – this boat’s a wreck. Who would be foolish (and rich) enough to try to make it seaworthy again? Western Boat Building Company of Tacoma built the 76-foot, 93-ton boat in 1937 as a purse seiner for the sardine fishery off central California. It fished 10 months out of the year and had April and May off. Anton Berry, captain and partner in the boat, chartered it to Steinbeck and Ricketts for six weeks for $2,500. They left Monterey Bay on March 11, stopped in San Diego for supplies, rounded Cabo San Lucas March 18, anchored in Guaymas April 6 and was back in San Diego on April 16 (Bailey 2015). According to Bailey:

When Steinbeck and Ricketts took the Western Flyer down to Mexico, they collected and caroused their way along the coast of Baja California. The boat served not only as a laboratory, but also as a refuge and a sanctuary for them. Steinbeck needed to escape the glare of the public spotlight after writing The Grapes of Wrath. Now that he was famous, brazen tourists sometimes wandered into his home demanding an autograph. Steinbeck’s descriptions of condition for workers in California’s Central Valley had touched on a raw nerve and unleashed an uproar from the ranchers and farmers there. They accused him of being a liar, drunkard, pervert, and dope fiend…Nearby communities held public book burnings that featured Steinbeck’s works…the FBI [was] investigating him…and his marriage was troubled. He needed an escape and maybe some healing. What could be better than a voyage to Mexico?

Western Flyer bow

Ed Ricketts owned Pacific Biological Laboratories, a biological supply house in Monterey. Steinbeck met Ricketts in 1930 and often accompanied him on collecting trips and worked in his lab preserving specimens; they had long discussions about marine ecology and philosophy. In 1939, Ricketts and Jack Calvin wrote Between Pacific Tides, an exploration of the habitats and habits of animals from Alaska to Mexico (link). It's one of the classic works in marine biology and is now in its 5th edition (1985). Steinbeck wrote the forward to the 1948 edition (link). 

Detail of the starboard side above the keel near the bow (note the concrete ballast between the ribs)

The sardine fishery collapsed in the late 1940s. Some of the boats began to fish offshore for tuna, but the Western Flyer was too small and slow. Captain Berry sold the boat and it was moved north to fish for Pacific herring (1951-52) out of Ketchikan, Alaska. The boat was then sold to a Seattle fisherman who converted it to a trawler to fish for Pacific Ocean perch (POP) and other bottom fish off Washington. The POP population crashed in the mid-1960s and boat was outfitted to fish for red king crab in the Aleutian Islands, which crashed in the early 1970s. The boat, which had been renamed Gemini, was sold again and worked as a tender in the salmon fisheries of southeast Alaska. [Tenders transfer fish from catcher-boats to shore-side canneries.] On one trip, the boat hit a reef near Ketchikan and partially sank (Bailey 2015). According to Bailey:

…The Western Flyer was bandaged, but her days working on the open ocean were over. She was now [early 1970s] relegated to work in the more sheltered waters of Puget Sound. The Flyer was too small and too slow to pursue salmon, and her bones had been broken and mended too many times. A fish tender is little more than a self-powered barge, and as a “cannery boat” the skippers changed frequently…

Stern and keel of the Western Flyer

In 1986, the Gemini was sold to an Anacortes fisherman and moored in the Swinomish Channel. Later it was sold to a real estate developer who owned several buildings in Salinas, California, Steinbeck’s home town. He planned to restore it as a restaurant and museum. The boat sank in 2012 and again in 2013, when it sat on the bottom for three months. It was refloated, towed to Port Townsend, hauled out and put up for sale. In 2015, John Gregg bought the boat and “…founded the non-profit Western Flyer Foundation (link) dedicated to the preservation, full-restoration and use of the Western Flyer as a scientific and educational vessel” (interpretive sign in the Shipwrights Co-op). The shipwright who showed us around said it was going to cost $2 million to restore the boat.

Motor yacht Westward in Boat Haven

We spent several hours walking around Boat Haven. Most shipyards are fenced and gated and don't wan't people walking around inside, but this one has a town street running through it and pedestrians and vehicles are common. The motor yacht Westward (above) is perhaps the best know boat in Seattle; it's on the National Register of Historic Places (link). It's in Beach Haven being restored by the Shipwrights Co-op (link). Built in 1924, it's 86 feet long, 18.7 feet wide (138 tons) and is powered by the original 1923 four-cylinder diesel engine. The engine is nine feet long, four feet wide and seven feet high, and each cylinder is 763 cubic inches. It has a salmon cannery tender hull and the interior of a yacht – an early hybrid between a workboat and a pleasure craft (link). Originally it carried hunting and fishing parties for the Alaska Coast Hunting and Cruising Company. Here's a link to a YouTube video of its early history, including harpooning whales. It circumnavigated the globe in the 1970s (link).

Fishing vessel Westward in Boat Haven

The fishing vessel Westward (above) 81 feet long and 26.5 feet wide (163 gross tons); it was built in 1943 as a wooden hull fish tender or reefer (link). In February 2008, the Westward ran aground carrying 30 tons of bait herring and partially sank off Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska (link). The skipper had turned the autopilot on and left the wheelhouse. In June 2009, the company that owned the vessel was given a year’s probation and the skipper was fined and given community service (link).

Fishing vessel Rennell Sound in Boat Haven

The Rennell Sound (above) is a wooden-hull salmon troller in Boat Haven for repairs. It was built in 1968 in British Columbia and is 43 feet long with a 13 foot beam (26 gross tons) (link). Weighted lines with lures or baited hooks are hung from tall poles (outriggers) extended over the water at mid-ship and trolled slowly through the water. A lot of people think that the freshest and best commercial-caught salmon are those caught on hook-and-line by trollers because they suffer the least damage when they are caught, and they are individually iced immediately after capture.

Superyacht Rushmore is carried by a travel lift in Boat Haven

Superyacht Rushmore

The superyacht Rushmore stopped traffic in Boat Haven while it was being transported by a travellift to a building where it will undergo repairs. Built in 2014, the fiberglass boat is 106 feet long with a beam of 24 feet (222 gross tons) (link; link). It's not a working boat, but it was impressive to see one as large as this hauled out of the water and moved with relative ease.

Houseboat in Boat Haven

I don't think of houseboats as working boats, but in a way they are. This one was under construction in Boat Haven. There's a large "floating home community" in Seattle, one of the few remaining in the U.S. (link). Floating homes are classified as: houseboats (have engines, steering, running lights, i.e., they are navigable); housebarges (designed for navigation, but lack engines and steering); floating homes (single-family home built on a float that is moored or anchored in the water); and liveaboards (boats that people live on) (link). 

Two gillnetters from Alaska entering the small lock on their way to Lake Union

One of the best places in Seattle for boatspotting is the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard, which are the busiest locks in the U.S. They were completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1917. Chittenden was the Corp's Seattle District Engineer from 1906-1908 and a driving force behind the ship canal and the locks. Locals call them the Ballard Locks. They're in Salmon Bay, which is part of the ship canal that connects Elliot Bay on Puget Sound to the freshwater lakes Union and Washington (link). 

Tugboat Wasp entering the large lock with two barges in tow on its way to Puget Sound

The locks have three purposes: maintain the water level of the two lakes at 20-22 feet above sea level, prevent saltwater from entering the lakes, and move boats from the lakes to sea level and vice versa. There are two locks side by side: the small lock is 150 feet long by 30 feet wide; the large lock is 825 feet long and 80 feet wide (link). In the picture above, tugboat Wasp is entering the large lock from Lake Union towing two empty barges accompanied by tugboat Bo Brusco (behind the barges). 

Two tugboats and two barges in the large lock

Once the tugs and barges are in the lock, the upper gates are closed behind them and the filling valve, which is upstream of and beneath the lock, is closed. The gates, which are mitered, are held closed by water pressure. 

Tugboat Wasp riding the elevator down as the water is drained from the lock

Water is drained from the lock through the drain valve, which is downstream of and beneath the lock.

Tugboat Wasp leaving the lock

When the water level in the lock is equal to the water level downstream, the lower gates are opened and the boats depart.

Tugboat Bo Brusco leaving the lock

I asked one of the Army Corps lock tenders when the next ship would move through the large lock. He said that the Tommy Thompson would arrive in half an hour, but first, the Salmon Bay railroad bridge (open in the picture above) would be lowered for a freight train coming from the north.

Great American Transportation Corporation (GATX) hopper cars crossing the Salmon Bay Bridge

The Salmon Bay Bridge is a single-leaf, through-truss (roadbed between the trusses) bascule (movable) bridge with a 500-ton, overhead counterweight. Built in 1914, it has an open span of 200 feet; closed, it is 45 feet above the water. It carries two railroad tracks (link; link)

Research vessel Thomas G. Thompson entering the large lock

The research vessel Thomas G. Thompson is owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by the University of Washington's School of Oceanography. It is 274 feet long with a 52.5 foot beam and carries 21 officers and crew, two marine technicians and up to 36 scientists. It was built in 1991. Dr. Thomas Gordon Thompson (1888-1961) was the first American chemist to focus on the chemistry of seawater and develop methods to quantify elements and ions; he founded the university’s oceanographic laboratories in 1930 (link). 

Research vessel Thomas G. Thompson in the large lock

As the ship entered the lock, I called up to one of the scientific crew near the bow. "Where are you coming from?" "Around the corner" he replied as the boat passed. I thought – 
which corner? The corner to Puget Sound? The Strait of Juan de Fuca? The Pacific Ocean? Here's a ship that spends months at sea on research cruises throughout the Pacific Ocean and they came from around the corner. I was disappointed it wasn't somewhere more remote.

The launch Motega in Port Angeles

When we left Whidbey Island, we drove around the Olympic Peninsula on our way south. We stopped in Port Angeles on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Motega (above) delivers people and freight to and from vessels in Puget Sound; it is operated by Arrow Launch Services (link). Here are pictures of it being serviced (link). In the distance is the double-hull, crude oil tanker Alaska Legend owned by the Alaska Tanker Company. Built in 2006, it is 941 feet long, 164 feet wide and carries 1.3 million barrels of oil (link).

Fishing vessel Ocean Joy in Port Angeles

The 75-foot Ocean Joy (above) was built in the early 1970s to troll for albacore in the Pacific Ocean. Besides having a great name and a mermaid painted on the bow, the owner started the non-profit Ocean Friends Against Driftnetting to educate the public about destructive and illegal driftnet fishing on the high seas (link). 

Polar Pioneer in Port Angeles

The Polar Pioneer was an interesting find. Transocean's semi-submersible rig can drill in water up to 1,600 feet deep to a maximum drilling depth of 25,000 feet. It accommodates 100 crew and was built to operate in harsh environments like the North Sea (link). The rig was leased by Royal Dutch Shell in 2014 and brought to Seattle from Norway in 2015 to take on supplies. It was met with on-water protests (link). The rig was towed to Alaska for the summer drilling season, but there were no protests when it arrived in Dutch Harbor (link). An icebreaker accompanying Polar Pioneer and another drill rig to the Chuckchi Sea put a hole in its hull outside Dutch Harbor and had to return to Portland for repairs. Shell also had problems obtaining the permits from the U.S. government (link; link). Shell cancelled the contract with Transocean in late 2015 after it decided not to drill in the Arctic (link).

Tug pulling two barges down Rosario Strait towards Seattle at sunset

Shipspotting: the hobby of watching ships and posting their photographs on the web (link; link; link). There are books written about it (link). Did you know such a hobby existed? 

K.M. Bailey. 2015. The Western Flyer: Steinbeck’s Boat, The Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 146 pp.