Platypus Marine Inc. has had a celebrity of sorts in its Commander Building at Marine Drive and Cedar Street in Port Angeles since early October.
After spending the summer in Alaska, the 120-foot yacht Silverado is in for some of Platypus’ magic.
She was built in 1974 by Willard Boat Works of Costa Mesa, Calif., for Harry See of the See’s Candies Inc. family. At the time, she was the largest fiberglass yacht ever built.
Her current businessmen-owners provide charter fishing expeditions in Alaska during the summer.
But it’s now a chilly and windy fall — and the perfect time for her to revisit Platypus (Silverado was in the Port Angeles yard in 2009).
This time, Platypus personnel rebuilt the exhaust system, painted the bottom, installed zincs and sent the prop out for tuning. Personnel also stripped off the varnish on the topside railings and applied a new coat of finish.
Silverado also is getting a new set of teak grates for her swim step that are constructed by Eric Bert, who operates his business, Modern Yacht Joinery, in a building that is centrally located at the Port Angeles Boatyard.
The swim step on Silverado is approximately 25 feet long and is composed of five grates that visually have a checkerboard pattern.
It is permanently attached to the stern of the yacht just above the surface of the water and is used by guests to access the yacht’s tender and for diving and swimming.
As is the case for any project, one of the first tasks — after creating working drawings — is to assemble the requisite material.
To do so, Eric went to Edensaw Woods in Port Townsend and spent nearly a half-day sorting through Edensaw’s stock of teak lumber.
Eric said to best utilize the characteristics of the wood, he selected only those pieces of teak with vertical grain.
Once back in the shop, he used a band saw, a planer and a joiner to cut, shape and smooth 125 board feet of teak stock into hundreds of pieces of wood necessary to assemble the grates that form the swim step.
When it came time to glue the grates together, Eric laid the pieces out on a warp-free surface that he had built specifically for this project.
Eric said the failure to assure himself of a perfectly level work surface risked the possibility of building a grate that wobbled when affixed to the frame of the swim step.
He explained that no fasteners were used when assembling the teak grates, thereby allowing them to expand and contract without breaking apart.
Last weekend, Eric fitted each of the five pieces of grate that make up the swim step to five templates he made by using the prior set of grates as a pattern.
He anticipates delivering the grates to Platypus Marine on Monday for final installation by Platypus personnel.
Eric apprenticed with Ralph Stanley, a prominent wooden-boat builder in Southwest Harbor, Maine, in the early 1990s, building upon the education in boat building he received at The Boat School of Husson University in Eastport, Maine.
For the past four years, he has operated his business at the Port Angeles Boatyard, where he has a complete woodworking shop.
His expertise ranges from traditional structural woodworking to modern composite construction and fine custom joinery.
Wooden Boat talk
In Port Townsend, Joe Greenlee, owner of Redfish Custom Kayak and Canoe Co. of Port Townsend, will be the featured speaker at this week’s Wooden Boat Wednesday event at the Chandlery in the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St.
Joe will demonstrate, discuss and entertain questions from the assemblage on how to remove old or damaged fiberglass cloth from a wooden boat and how to apply new fiberglass.
Joe said: “The removal process requires minimal tools, is surprisingly easier than you might think and doesn’t really require any special skill.
“And just like removal, the fiberglass application is easy to do — with just a little bit of knowledge and only $10 worth of tools, you can have your small boat, kayak or canoe back on the water in no time.”
The presentation will include a “show-and-tell” segment that demonstrates the process step by step.
There is no charge for Wooden Boat Wednesday, which begins promptly at noon and typically lasts for 90 minutes.
Seating is limited and requires advance registration by phoning the maritime center at 360-385-3628, ext. 101, or by sending an email to chandlery@nwmaritime.org.
Trading places
With an assist from the Foss tractor tug Lindsey Foss, Polar Endeavour, the ConocoPhillips-owned crude oil tanker, eased off the Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal 1 North on Friday afternoon and headed to Valdez, Alaska, for another load of North Slope oil.
The phytoplankton barely had time to settle when it was to be stirred up by another crude oil tanker, this time the Alaskan Frontier as she was due to moor at Terminal 1 North on Saturday for the weekend.
According to Margie Mirabella of Washington Marine Repair, the topside-repair company at the foot of Cedar Street, the 941-foot, double-hull Frontier is in for two days of minor repairs and the installation of a new washer and dryer set in the crew quarters.
Success story
In spring 2010, Lee Shore Boats, which had been building aluminum boats in Port Townsend for more than 25 years, moved its production facility to Port Angeles.
Eric Schneider and his wife, Dena, purchased the company, which specializes in building mono-hull boats used in the commercial fishing industry, in September 2009.
Since then, they have continued the tradition of building durable, heavy-duty commercial work boats and pleasure craft.
Last week, a 40-foot shipping container was delivered to Lee Shore that was full of machinery, equipment, tools and supplies that the Schneiders acquired when they purchased the assets of the now shuttered aluminum-boat manufacturer, Nichols Diversified Industries LLC of Freeland on Whidbey Island.
Eric said Lee Shore Boats is expanding operations and the time was right to acquire more equipment and increase offerings in its product line.
A couple of boats in particular have caught Eric’s fancy: a 32-foot Bristol Bay gillnetter and a 21-foot seine skiff.
There is also the possibility that a 50-foot commercial fishing boat is in Lee Shore Boats’ future.
Harbor filler-up
Tesoro Petroleum on Tuesday refueled Concordia, a Liberian-flagged cargo ship that is 738 feet long and has a 105-foot beam, while anchored in Port Angeles Harbor.
On Saturday, Tesoro was scheduled to bunker Ci Yun Shan, a 623-foot cargo ship that is flagged in Hong Kong.
Today, Tesoro will provide bunkers to JS Belmar, a cargo ship that is also 623 feet long. Its destination is Pusan, 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 waterfront.
Items 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.
