Only a handful of insomniacs and really early risers will see the 3 a.m. Monday arrival in Port Angeles of Selinda, a new 587-foot, self-trimming bulk cargo ship.
She is the ninth vessel this year to come dockside for a load of logs that has been harvested from private lands in western Washington and Canada.
If all goes according to plan, she will depart Port Angeles on Friday night with about 5½ million board feet of logs bound for China.
A great wall of logs at the site of the former Peninsula Plywood mill will be loaded aboard Selinda.
Grant Munro, a log buyer (and former Port Angeles City Council member) whose company, Munro LLC, brokered the sale of the logs, said that approximately 36,000 of them will be loaded aboard the ship.
That’s roughly equivalent to 1,200 loaded log trucks.
Munro LLC is one of four companies that broker logs to the Asian market.
Most logging today is largely done on lands owned by companies.
Long before the current wave of log ships began making port calls for cargo, Munro LLC was stuffing shipping containers with logs and shipping them to South Korea.
Merrill & Ring, a mainstay of the local economy since its purchase of a tree farm in Pysht in 1888, is another exporter of logs.
M&R owns about 35,000 acres of sustainable timberland in Western Washington and an additional 40,000 acres or so in British Columbia and New Zealand.
In March 2010, M&R was the first company in more than a decade to load logs aboard a cargo ship for export to South Korea and China when the Koombana Bay pulled dockside for 2 million board feet of logs.
International Forest Products Ltd., or Interfor, a Canadian forest products company with milling operations west of Port Angeles, brings log booms to Port Angeles from British Columbia that are then loaded aboard ship.
The most recent entrant in the exporting of logs from Port Angeles is Alcan Forest Products LLC, a subsidiary of Trans-Pac Group that is also a Canadian company based in Vancouver, B.C.
In early June, Alcan loaded logs aboard Green Island, which will be making a return trip to Port Angeles soon after Selinda gets under way.
Green Island will take on a partial deck load of Alcan logs.
In 2012, 13 log ships came to Port Angeles and took on a bit more than 66 million board feet of logs.
This year the Port of Port Angeles is expected to see a slight increase in the number of ships that come pier-side for a cargo of logs, with a corresponding increase in the number of board feet of exported product.
For comparison, in 1991, Port Angeles shipped 168 million board feet of logs.
Other shipments:
1992: 151 million.
1993: 87 million
1994: 65 million.
1995: 60 million.
1996: 63 million
1997: 41 million.
1998: 25 million.
1999: 20 million.
2000: 13 million.
No log exports from 2001 through 2007.
2008: 1.1 million.
2009: 5.4 million.
2010: 20.25 million.
2011: 80 million.
In for a makeup job
Platypus Marine, the Port Angeles-based, full-service shipyard, yacht repair facility and steel boat manufacturer, has LB-10 sitting in the Commander Building.
The vessel is a log bronc that is used as a pusher work boat at Naval Base Kitsap.
According to Marty Marchant, Platypus’ director of sales and marketing, personnel sandblasted LB-10 and are in the process of applying a fresh coat of paint.
Nothing highlights a new outfit like jewelry, and in this case that means a shiny new set of zincs will be attached.
The Commander Building also is temporary home to RB-M 45602, a 45-foot response boat (medium) that is attached to the Port Angeles Coast Guard station on Ediz Hook.
She was built by Kvichak (pronounced kweejack) Marine Industries of Seattle and was delivered to the Coast Guard in 2008.
The boat was the second in the RB-M series that Kvichak built.
To date, the company has delivered 129 of these vessels, which are powered by Detroit Diesels that are coupled to Rolls-Royce outÂdrives.
RB-M 45602 is having her bottom sandblasted and repainted. The air conditioning is being modified, the outÂdrives are being serviced, and personnel are whittling away at a lengthy punch list of maintenance items borne of a vessel that has no doubt seen some pretty tough duty in the local waters.
Sharing space with RB-M 45602 and LB-10 is Invincible, a 52-foot steel motor lifeboat that was built in the Coast Guard Yard in Curtis Bay, Md., and commissioned in 1960.
The boat is self-righting and self-bailing and can carry up to 40 survivors, complete with a galley.
Invincible, which also carries 52313 on her bow, had her hull sandblasted and a slate of maintenance items attended to.
She likely will be returned to the water within a week or so and returned to her moorage at the Grays Harbor Lifeboat Station in Westport, where she has been a fixture since Nov. 30, 1960.
It is from there that she is called upon to take part in search-and-rescue missions, undertake recreational boating safety duties, support enforcement of maritime law and engage in the protection of the marine environment.
Investigative reporter
Someone whispered to me last week that moonshine could be found in Platypus’ Commander Building.
Thinking I heard wrong, off I went to investigate, and alas, I found it was so — a 41-foot Tartan sailboat named Moonshine.
She most recently hailed from Atlantic Highlands, N.J., and is one of the approximately 65,000 recreational boats that fell victim to the ravages of Hurricane Sandy.
Apparently, she was tossed out of the water and was found by the side of a road.
The current owner, who lives in Poulsbo, bought the boat at auction and is currently having the boat’s damage assessed with an eye to rehabbing her.
A bit of history
MV Northwind, a fixture that has been sitting on the hard in Platypus Marine’s yard for more than three years, is about to move on.
Within the next week or so, I understand that she will be back in the water and under way for the Bremerton Marina.
Northwind is a 130-foot, steel-riveted yacht that was built in 1930 by Manitowoc Shipping Corp. for Charles Martin Clark Jr., a wealthy American industrialist.
For 80 years, Northwind traveled the world and hosted her share of celebrities from the notorious to the rich and famous, including John Profumo, the British diplomat, and Christine Keeler, a British showgirl with whom he became entangled; Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth; President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy; and Sir Winston Churchill.
During World War II, she was conscripted by the British government and served as a torpedo-net tender and personnel transporter.
She also participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk, France, from May 26 to June 4, 1940, when hundreds of boats of all sizes and description ferried more than 338,000 Allied troops from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk to waiting naval and merchant ships.
Hansen Yacht Sales of Seattle currently has Northwind listed for sale for $750,000.
The old girl could certainly benefit from a nostalgic owner who’s looking to restore a bit of history.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats and strolling the area waterfronts.
Items and questions involving boating, port activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome. Email dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
His column, On the Waterfront, appears every Sunday.
