Last Tuesday morning, Pegasus Voyager, the 904-foot-long oil tanker that is operated by Chevron Shipping Co. as a lightering vessel along the California coast, left Port Angeles for California.
The vessel moored to the Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal 1 North on June 17, at which time personnel from the topside repair company Vigor Industrial began making repairs to the vessel’s controllable pitch propeller system.
On Wednesday, the four floating sectional barges Vigor Industrial used as a work platform at the stern of Pegasus Voyager were hoisted out of the water, loaded onto a flatbed truck and returned to Poseidon Barges in Seattle.
Wind watcher
Earlier last week, a wind sentinel that had been at Platypus Marine, the full-service steel boatbuilder and yacht repair company on Marine Drive in Port Angeles, since October was loaded aboard a flatbed truck for shipment to New Jersey.
The wind sentinel is equipped with instruments that measure the wind’s speed, velocity and duration wherever it is moored in an attempt to identify the ideal location for the placement of an offshore wind farm to generate energy.
Stowed at Platypus
Platypus Marine has Escapade sitting on the hard at its waterfront facility.
She is a 66-foot Selene that is in for a shave and a haircut — maritime lingo for having her bottom cleaned and a fresh coat of bottom paint applied.
I understand that a short time ago while in Alaska, the vessel sustained damage to the starboard stabilizer, which personnel will replace.
Platypus has Be Mine stowed in the commander building. She is a 130-foot Lurssen superyacht that I understand will be out of the water for about three weeks while she undergoes a five-year Lloyd’s Register hull survey.
Westport’s lift
Marty Marchant, director of sales and marketing for Platypus Marine, told me they called upon Westport to haul out the yacht with their 550-ton TraveLift.
Marty said it wasn’t a weight issue with Platypus’ TraveLift; rather, they were having an issue getting good balance for the lift out of the water with the way the straps are arrayed on their TraveLift.
Therefore, it was determined that the prudent approach was to ask Westport to use its TraveLift, which has straps configured quite differently from Platypus’, to balance the super yacht for the lift out of the water without any problem.
I spoke with the yacht’s captain, Mikael Andersson, who told me that the last time Be Mine was out of the water was two years ago in Savannah, Ga.
He also said when they leave Port Angeles, they will head to San Diego, Calif.
Mysterious boat
Recently, I have received a number of emails asking if the “old” wooden boat sitting in the corner of Platypus Marine’s yard was abandoned and if I knew anything about it.
What little bit I do know is the boat’s name is Fleetwood, and she is owned by Stewart Hoagland, a shipwright that works for Platypus Marine.
She is an 87-foot wooden boat that has been sitting on the hard for the better part of six years in the yard at Platypus.
Fleetwood was built by Martinolich Shipbuilding in San Francisco and launched in 1943.
According to Hoagland, she was built as a bait boat to support the tuna fleet during World War II whose catches were being processed and shipped overseas to feed the troops in the European and Pacific Theaters.
After the war, she made her way to Alaska and in 1964, during the tsunami that followed the Great Alaskan Earthquake, she was deposited on to the streets of Kodiak.
She was repaired, refloated and during the early years of the king crab fisheries, was the largest boat in the fleet.
Floating shop
Fleetwood was in Friday Harbor for a number of years and then taken to moorage in Fisherman’s Terminal in Seattle.
It was there that Hoagland acquired ownership and used the boat as his shop for over seven years before coming to Port Angeles.
_________
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.
