Platypus Marine relaunched the Navy barge YFN 1217.
She had been stowed on the hard at the Port Angeles full-service shipyard, steel-boat manufacturer and yacht-repair facility since early May, during which time the vessel was enveloped in a maze of scaffolding.
And the barge was wrapped with a thick plastic-like product that was stretched wrinkle-free across the barge and secured to the scaffolding.
While encased in this envelope, personnel sandblasted, primed and painted the interior spaces and exterior of the vessel.
Lovely lady
Richard Ying, who own Paspatoo, a 65-foot wooden trawler-style yacht, had her out of her boathouse at Port Angeles last week and was making preparations to take a trip to San Francisco.
But the weather became uncooperative, so back into the boathouse went the lovely lady.
Richard said the yacht was built in 1942 for the U.S. Army by the Blanchard Boatyard on Lake Union in Seattle.
Richard surmises that the boat was used by the Army to supply coastal installations in Alaska.
Paspatoo was refit in the 1980s at Admiral Marine Works in Port Townsend, he said.
The vessel’s hull is carvel planking of 2¼-inch old-growth Douglas fir. The decks are teak-planked.
Richard went on to say that he has owned Paspatoo for 30 years, and as he will soon be 70 years old, it is time for another to assume ownership, so the yacht is now for sale.
Logs in and out
At the beginning of last week, Astoria Bay, a 610-foot cargo ship, moored to Port of Port Angeles Terminal 3 and is taking on a load of debarked logs destined for China that were harvested off Merrill & Ring’s private landholdings in Western Washington.
Earlier, the deck barge Captain Vancouver (formerly named Paul Bunyan) unloaded a cargo of logs from British Columbia that Alcan Forest Products added to its inventory that will be loaded aboard an upcoming log ship bound for the Far East.
Breaking boats
The Port of Port Angeles is ridding itself of three unwanted and otherwise abandoned wooden vessels.
Although I am not privy to the details, no doubt the specifics entail a failure in each instance to pay one or more fees when due.
The port is disposing of the vessels by breaking them up and disposing of them in the landfill, which is the only recourse left to the agency.
One of the boats, Low Roller, had been escorted into Port Angeles in October 2014 by the Coast Guard because it found the vessel to be in a questionable state of seaworthiness.
She also had been leaking Âdiesel fuel in the Strait.
Another of the boats headed for the landfill is Trio, an old harbor tug that has been on the hard for five years or more.
In the 1957 edition of Pacific Tugboats by Gordon Newell, there is an undated photograph of Trio at the Colman dock in Seattle, and the caption reads in part that her decks are shown loaded with new canvas to be delivered to an anchored windjammer in the harbor.
Port Angeles Harbor watch
Tesoro Petroleum on Monday provided bunkers to Pinnacle Spirit, a 900-foot petroleum-products carrier that is flagged in the Bahamas.
The vessel, which was anchored in Port Angeles Harbor, is now headed to Puerto Armuelles on Panama’s Pacific coast.
Later Monday, Tesoro refueled Iris Glory, a 741-foot LPG carrier that is now underway to Ulsan, South Korea.
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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’s waterfronts and boat yards.
Items and questions involving boating, marina and industrial activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome. News announcements about boating groups, including yacht clubs and squadrons, are welcome as well.
Email dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
