For more than 30 years, the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock has been teaching techniques that are unique to Puget Sound to students from around the world.
More than 1,000 individuals — running the gamut from recent high school graduates and professionals making a career change to retirees seeking only to learn new skills — have earned associate degrees and diplomas in the art of traditional wooden boat-building.
Tim Lee graduated from the school in 1990 and spent the next decade developing his skills at boat yards in Alaska and Washington.
Tim has spent the past decade at the school as a member of the working faculty and currently serves as the school’s education coordinator.
Recently, Tim returned from a summer in Ireland where he helped to develop programs and workshops for at-risk youths and the unemployed at the AK Ilen School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Limerick.
During August, he was at Hegarty’s Boatyard in Old Court, Baltimore, Ireland, teaching the teachers as they and their students painstakingly work to rebuild the AK Ilen.
She’s a 56-foot sailing ketch that was built in Baltimore on Ireland’s southwest coast and launched in 1926.
The Ilen was sailed to the Falkland Islands off South America, where she spent close to 50 years transporting people, sheep, stores and mail to the various island communities scattered throughout South Falkland Sound.
In the early 1990s, she was retired and by the mid-‘90s was transported back to Baltimore and is now being rebuilt in Old Court.
Although back home in Port Hadlock, Tim’s involvement with the Ilen continues.
He and a group of his colleagues are arranging for a cargo of western larch to be exported to the school.
The wood will be used for planking aboard Ireland’s lone remaining seagoing sailing ship.
Sheriff’s boat
Lee Shore Boats, Port Angeles’ most recent entrant in the aluminum-boat manufacturing sector, is wrapping up construction of a 26-foot mono hull law enforcement patrol boat for the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
The new vessel, which replaces a 19-foot inflatable boat that was confiscated for transporting drugs, is powered by twin 175-horsepower outboards, seats four and is equipped with the latest array of navigational technology, including night vision capabilities.
Eric Schneider, owner of Lee Shore Boats, said one of the requirements of the contract is that the boat is able to be stored in the sheriff’s boat storage facility in Sequim, which has an 11-foot height restriction.
Eric explained that to accomplish this, they installed a folding radar arch and a folding searchlight, and all of the antennas aboard the patrol boat can be laid flush atop the roof of the boat’s cabin.
Additionally a trailer was custom-made by All Fab Trailers of Sequim that has the boat nested lower in the trailer’s cradle than is typical.
Clallam Sheriff’s Deputy Ralph Edgington is the project manager on the new-build and has been involved in the undertaking since 2009 when it was still in the conceptual stage.
Ralph wrote the specs for the boat and assisted Patty Morris in assembling the port security grant that was ultimately awarded to the county by Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Eric and his crew will conduct sea trials on the patrol boat beginning Monday that will continue throughout the week.
On Monday, Sept. 19, the county will take delivery of the new boat at ceremonies that are scheduled to be held at the courthouse in Port Angeles.
At the conclusion of the brief formalities, Deputy Edgington will have at his disposal a new patrol boat that can operate in heavier waters than the current inflatable, cruise at 35 mph, hit a top speed of 50 mph and do all that on a projected 10 gallons of fuel an hour.
Fishing boat work
Platypus Marine of Port Angeles has had Melissa Lynn sitting on the hard for the past month or so.
The 58-foot commercial fishing boat hails from Adak, Alaska, and is owned by Jeremy Winn of Hoquiam.
Personnel removed the prop and installed new bearings as well as attached a newly fabricated set of prop cutters to go along with the existing set that were sharpened to a razor’s edge.
A fair amount of welding took place on the decking, bulwarks and bulkheads requiring the diesel fuel remaining in the boat’s fuel tanks to be pumped off.
Mar Vac of Seattle was called in to perform the task, and the company also pumped a cleaning solution into the tanks to remove any fuel residue to ensure a gas-free environment for welders.
Craftsmen installed a new shower pan in the head and a couple of owner provided hatches into the aft deck.
Melissa Lynn also received a new coat of paint from the cap rail down, and looks to be in fine shape for another season of fishing in Alaskan waters.
Turkish origin
Leroy sat on the hard at Platypus Marine for a couple of days this past week.
She is a 54-foot yacht built in 2006 by Barbaros Teknecilik in Istanbul, Turkey.
The boat, which hails from Sausalito, Calif., was returning home after cruising Canadian waters surrounding Vancouver Island and running over a log in the open seas off Cape Flattery.
Limping into Port Angeles, an inspection revealed that — not surprisingly — the propeller shaft was knocked askew.
Gomer, Platypus Marine’s guru for all things mechanical, was able to repair the lip seal and realign the shaft, and Leroy was back in the water Friday afternoon heading home.
Back in Port Angeles
Princess, a 42-foot fiberglass commercial troller, arrived in Port Angeles on Friday night and is moored at N float on the west side of the Boat Haven.
This is the second year that Heather Sears, who owns the boat, and her lone crew member, Mariah Warren, have stopped over in Port Angeles to sell albacore tuna off the stern of the boat.
Heather told me that she and Mariah will be here this weekend only, selling whole albacore for $2.75 a pound.
Filling up
Tesoro Petroleum in Port Angeles Harbor on Tuesday bunkered Glenda Melissa, a Liberian-flagged petroleum-products tanker that is 600 feet long with a 105-foot beam.
On Friday, Tesoro provided bunkers to Tanir, a Russian-flagged break bulk cargo ship with a 66-foot beam that is 436 feet long.
Tanir, which is designed to operate in light ice conditions, has four cargo cranes from which she can reach her four cargo holds that have the capacity to store 250 containers each 40 feet long while stowing an additional 178 on deck.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats, ships 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.
