Boating enthusiasts and neophyte mariners alike are invited to attend the monthly meeting Monday night of the North Olympic Sail and Power Squadron at the Cedars at Dungeness Golf Club, 1965 Woodcock Road, northwest of Sequim.
There will be a social hour at 5 p.m. and dinner, which is $19 per person, at 6 p.m.
The squadron’s safety committee will give a presentation on what constitutes an adequate first aid kit that all boaters should have onboard their vessels.
Attendees are encouraged to bring the first aid kit from their boat or home to the meeting, and members of the safety committee will evaluate their portable medicine cabinet and make recommendations.
For more information or to make a reservation, call Deta Stem at 360-683-9444 or Svein Selieseth at 360-582-9744.
Hybrid crews
In last week’s column about the mono-hull dive-assist boat Armstrong Marine built for the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land, it was pointed out that the tender is one of two ships operated by the Military Sealift Command that is operated by a hybrid crew of Navy personnel and civilian mariners and commanded by a Navy captain.
Adrian Schulte, a public affairs specialist with the Navy’s Military Sealift Command in Washington, D.C., was kind enough to contact me to say that, in fact, there are three MSC ships with hybrid crews.
In addition to the USS Emory S. Land, the submarine tender USS Frank Cable is attached to the Seventh Fleet and the USS Mount Whitney, a command ship, serves as the flagship for the Sixth Fleet.
Civilian mariners’ duties aboard these ships include providing galley services and staffing navigation, deck and engineering billets.
Back home
The Coast Guard cutter Active has returned to her berth at Ediz Hook in Port Angeles after a two-month deployment patrolling the waters of Central and South America.
Lt. j.g. Matt Kearns, who was standing in for the ship’s public affairs officer, said that during her deployment, the ship made a sizable seizure of 1,300 pounds of cocaine in her patrol area.
Kearns also said the crew of 70 enlisted personnel and 12 officers made a port call to Panama City, Panama, where many of the ship’s complement toured the Panama Canal.
Many also had liberty call in the port city of Golfito, Costa Rica.
After Active’s return to Port Angeles at the end of February, a large contingent of ship’s personnel departed for a week or more of leave, and the cutter was manned with a skeleton crew until the beginning of last week.
Kearns said the next couple of months will be spent catching up on maintenance items and clearing the deck of lingering administrative issues as well as replenishing the ship’s stores and supplies.
The details of Active’s next deployment remain unsettled.
However, in addition to whatever duties may be conferred upon her, one port of call has been confirmed for 2011 — Portland, Ore., at the Rose Festival in June.
It is there that Active will join a fleet of Coast Guard cutters, U.S. Navy ships and Canadian Maritime Forces for Fleet Week and participate in a tradition dating back to 1907 when the USS Charleston was the first ship to visit the Portland Rose Festival.
In for work
Oregon Mist, which hails from Victoria, is sitting on the hard in Platypus Marine’s yard on the Port Angeles waterfront.
According to Capt. Charlie Crane, Platypus’ director of sales and marketing, the Queenship 86 will be out of the water for about a week to have her props tuned, her bottom painted and new line cutters installed.
A line cutter is a device installed on a prop or the shaft of a prop that cuts lines before they can become entangled in the props.
The sources of errant line are numerous. They include poorly marked crab pots, lines lost overboard and line discarded by recreational boaters and commercial fisherman.
Nets, weeds and other floating debris can also be hazardous to a prop’s health.
Platypus Marine also hauled Eliza Joye out of the water, and the commercial fishing boat is sitting in the Commander Building, where she will remain for another week or so.
Capt. Charlie said the 54-foot vessel, which hails from Nanaimo, B.C., will have her prop tuned, zincs installed, sonar equipment upgraded and drainage issues in her scuppers resolved.
Eliza Joye is a tuna troller owned by John Jenkins of Sooke, B.C.
John trolls for albacore about 130 miles offshore from about the middle of June to October. The vessel holds about 25 tons of fish that are blast-frozen to minus-40 degrees Fahrenheit.
The troller is a fiberglass boat that was built in 1979 by Phillbrooks Boatyard in Sidney, B.C.
While standing beneath the boat speaking with Capt. Charlie and John, I noticed a couple of aluminum plates about 2½ feet to 3 feet square that had been embedded into the bottom.
There were also two plates — one of aluminum and one of copper — that followed the contour of the keel, and these, too, were embedded.
I asked John about the purpose of the plates — and the explanation that followed had me wondering if I was listening to a fisherman spinning a tale.
John explained to me that all boats are surrounded by an electrical field — an aura, so to speak.
This electrical aura emits either positive or negative ions which repel or attract fish — positive attracts and negative repels.
John went on to explain that these plates, in concert with the zincs and aluminum anodes that are strategically placed on the bottom of the boat, create a “happy place” of positive ions that attracts tuna to the boat’s wake as she trolls through the water at about 5 knots.
During the course of John’s commentary, he was unable to keep a straight face, and I met his discourse with my own skeptical grin.
Even now as I write this, I can hardly keep from chuckling.
However, after doing a little research, there seems to be anecdotal evidence that supports John’s attraction to this concept, but I was unable to find any scientific evidence that confirms the theory.
John did wrap up the conversation by saying that regardless of the state of the science, the plates work for him and will be on his boats as long as he owns them.
Out in the harbor
Tesoro Petroleum bunkered two oil tankers last week: British Oak on Monday and British Laurel on Friday.
Both vessels are 790 feet long, flagged in the Isle of Man and owned by BP Shipping.
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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.
E-mail dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
His column, On the Waterfront, appears every Sunday.
