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Dear Friends and Customers,
It has been way too long since we published a newsletter. I can’t believe it, but the last one was in June, 2005. We have been a little busy around the edges and I should have kept a log. Margie & I decided to send it out with the calendar as that saves days of time formatting the pictures. Just be forewarned, I may get some of the timing out of sequence and we’ll have pictures next time.
Blueberry Time:
We left off with me being on light duty because of my knees. Okay, so just before our trip this past summer, Tom, Chris and Erik built me an elevator lift into the engine room of the Blueberry so I would not worry about putting too much pressure on either knee and it works great – maybe not up to Buzz Dana’s standards, but it goes up and down just fine and sure made a success of the summer.
Adair of AJ Diesel completed the installation of a 110 volt motor driving a hydraulic pump on the Blueberry so if we lost the starboard engine, we could still pick the anchor and the boat runs just fine on one engine. Nice safeguard as getting an anchor that weighs 240 lbs. plus the chain weight up is quite an undertaking if your anchor winch gives up!
We left in late June, anchoring first in Elger Bay which is kind of an open roadstead, shallow, with fierce westerly winds, but it was nice to finally be by ourselves with some protection from the shore – just right. A couple of days were spent getting our boat in order and then up to La Conner so Margie could return for month-end stuff for about a week.
Finally got the pick down in Hunter Bay on the south end of Lopez; where we anchored, you can look straight out Lopez Pass and see the ferries lit up at night. Lying in Hunter, you get an idea how much fog is in Rosario Straits. Well, time to go to Canada so we amble up to anchor in Blind Bay across from Orcas and the phone rings. It’s Erik and he tells us that Murray Amos is not doing well. Murray is an old friend (1959) and I am his guardian as he, and now his wife, has been in a nursing home for 5 years, both with Alzheimer’s. So we prepare to go back to Anacortes the next morning when Erik calls with the news that Murray passed away. Well, this is a blessing but also gives us a few things to do. So we tie the boat up in Anacortes and arrive back in Seattle by rental car so Margie & I can take care of the funeral arrangements, his widow, Joan, and then month end. And, so three weeks went by when we got back to Anacortes – just in time for the Arts & Crafts Show. That is so worth going to see! We ran into Greg & Betty Mallory and had a fun time catching up over lunch and then wandering off to buy more good stuff.
So, off again to our favorite nearby spot - Hunter Bay - anchor down so you can see right out Lopez Pass. We understand it was very hot in Desolation Sound and south of the Yuculta Rapids in general. Not so for us, we stayed on the pick with the westerly blowing and the fog rolling in and out – it was almost cold and our kind of weather! Of course we had to make another trip to Seattle, so it was much easier to tie up in Anacortes, drive down to Seattle and then go back out to watch the Hunter Bay moon. We did get a really nice visit from Nick & Pat Brower who were returning from their yachting vacation in Desolation – they reported a very hot summer, but they really enjoyed it. I have mass respect for Nick – he skippered great big huge tugs all over the ocean. Seems that Canadian weather changes at the Yuculta Rapids and south of the rapids picks up the Sunshine Coast weather which is usually too hot for me.
Tug Stuff: Our tug Sovereign is laid up for sale. She will be sold at auction at James G. Murphy’s in Kenmore on February 4, 2006. [No, we’re not bringing her inland!] I bought her in 1983. We were cruising in Canada on the A-1 along with the Paterson’s on the Winamac and the Leonard’s on the Teal. So Robin & Erik and I flew down and looked at her in the FVO ways and I made a deal for her, then we all went back to cruising. She was built by River Line in Sacramento and had a pair of 150 H.P. Atlas Imperial diesels. River Line had been saving out a bunch of old growth fir to build another barge but WWII started so they built a tug called the Plumas. She was rebuilt in the 1960’s and a new house and engines put in her. They installed four each 6-71’s driving two 58” 4-blade props thru about a 7:1 reduction gear. She was always a good puller! When she came up to Puget Sound she ended up towing garbage barges to Marysville. One of the barges was a 327’ LST conversion. I asked her skipper how she was when it got rough; he said she rode and towed just great, even though she looks like a giant seine skiff out of water. I bought her from Bob Waterman who was using her to tow three 110’ gravel scow from the pit to the south end of Lake Union. She would make a round trip every 24 hours. She was a total success for us, coming to work for us just as the big crab boat fleet was building. I should count the number of shifts she did! But she is an old wood boat now and we have replaced her with the Dixie which is a steel 50’ tug with 500 H.P. and two monkey rudders. So things change. We changed her colors to blue on the lower house and I look over from our houseboat and say gee, that’s a neat looking boat. Hope her new home is a good one.
From Russia with love: A great James Bond movie and that had been as close as I ever got to Russia – a movie screen. But I bought the Grace Foss from Foss (thank you!) after she had finished working in Russia at the Sakhalin Island oil project. Erik and Tom received a phone call from Foss Maritime inquiring if we would charter them our tug Stinger to work at the Sakhalin Islands. She was just what they needed – short (20”), wide (14’) lots of power (8-71 GM on a 3:1 gear with a 38” 4-blade ss prop) and shallow. “Of course!” was our reply so pretty quick, the Stinger was loaded on a barge and off she went. We later saw a picture of her in their company magazine Tow Bitts. That’s really something – a mini-tug service in Russia. Now I’ve seen it all.
Standfast has a different engine: our 6-110 GM bent a con rod and we replaced it with an 8-92 Detroit – it bolts up to the same clutch and swings the same diameter wheel. You can only get 48” diameter on a US Army ST. Very smooth and you can buy parts for it.
Didn’t get to the workboat show in town; really wanted to see Ron Burchett and his pool with all the RC models – they even had his log barge that dumps. But it was not to be: Margie was just drying up from a cold and I was in a full-blown 2-day cold and I know better than to force the health issue – nor would I want to give my cold to any of those nice folks.
Understand Dave Wells of Island Tug & Barge has retired. He started working for Norm Stanley and ended up owning a part of the company. That’s a real hawse pipe story. He always was nice to me, & even gave me several name boards for the Mark Freeman Maritime Museum. Margie & I were in Astoria once when one of his tugs came under the bridge. I called Erik and told him to call Dave to tell him his boat just went under the bridge: old time stuff, guess they use the radio now!
Erik is our new TV star! CNN contacted him and wanted to make an ad for CNN News. Seems they wanted short bits from lots of different businesses around the country to introduce the news. So here comes 5 neat guys, cameras, boom mikes, etc and they get up on the well deck of the Blueberry and boy it was fun. Erik’s famous sound bite is: “I’m on call 24 hours a day so I need a news station that runs 24 hours a day; CNN is pretty glued on in my house.” They sent us a copy of the CD and a few people actually saw it on TV! Ric Shrewsbury was waiting in the airport at SeaTac when he looks up at the TV and here is Erik talking to him – small world.
The kids (Erik & Tom) were called last winter to tow the old tug H.H. Hubble up to Northlake Shipyard where she was put in dry dock and disposed of. She was an Allman Hubble boat from Hoquiam. She had this fancy steel house on this old wood hull. Good power – 500 H.P. Cat, but it was a funny
house: good looking, but no bunks and was a typical day boat about 65’ long. She had been kicking around here for a long time. It’s sad to see them destroyed.
I have been on really light duty since my accident, but have been working in my towboat museum. About 40 years ago, I purchased 3 boxes of WWII ship identification lead models. I found some mirrored display cabinets along with 1930’s warship toys and Alnavco lead models. You should come by and see them. I think I like the toys with the wheels best. They are about 6” long. Also one box was British warship models from WWII – neat stuff.
Margie got me Adobe Photoshop for my computer so I could edit the Bud McCarty photos better. In that bunch of photos it shows the Howkan and her fish scow aground being salvaged. The Rose & the Mary Francis were present as well as a power scow and the CG 83 from Friday Harbor. I am told it was Binough Bay. Anyone know where that is? The picture looks like the outside of San Juan Island. Anyone remember that far back – about 1947?
Nita Foraker has been publishing the newsletter for the International Retired Tug Association and doing a heck of a good job – never had so many tug pictures and news and good stuff. Well after doing it for many years, Nita resigned. Publishing it took three weeks to get it out the door and she published it quarterly – so that was a big chunk of time for volunteer work. And, she has a lot of other things to do; like get her life back! Margie & I want to thank Nita for a job well done. I have trouble getting out our little newsletter so we know what a major task she did for so many years. Thanks, Nita.
Brad took off on his normal winter run to the cabin. Of course, you have to understand the cabin is almost to Port McNeil in Shawl Bay. You further have to understand that his boat is steel and 55’ long and draws 8 feet. Boy is he tough. He sends me e-mails while he’s gone. Last year, he was in Forward Harbor with it blowing 55 knots. His anchor dragged so he moved up to the head of the bay and reset it. Lake Union looks pretty good in the winter to me!
Crossing the Bar
Several of my old friends have died in the recent past and I just wanted to include them in this newsletter, although their deaths are not exactly current – neither is this letter.
Matthew Lyon 1933-2005 Matt was the man that put out that really nice tugboat calendar. I don’t think they made a dime on it, but it was the right thing to do. He and his wife, Judy, gave me all his tugboat stuff before he died.
We miss him.
Bob Burns 1919 – 2004 Bob was my friend and a neat tugboat guy. I bought the tug Manila from him; and my dad, Doc, sold him all kinds of small tugs. He worked for American Tugboat Company for years and in 1974 started up his own company, Sequoia Marine. He had different small tugs, salvaged logs, did general towing, and had a neat 40’ boat he would take to the Olympia tugboat races. When he was Chief on the Arthur S and I was going to help them out thru the Locks with their Northland barge and Bob couldn’t get the fuel filters for her but had 2 cases out in Pt. Wells and no way to get them. So I ran out, picked up the two cases and dropped them off before he started the tow. He was always such a soft-spoken gentleman with a heart of gold.
Jimmy Clifton died on September 8, 2004. He was 72. I met Jimmy at Lake Union Dry dock where he became dockmaster – that means he was in charge of dry docking all their vessels. Jimmy served 23 years in the US Navy, retiring as a Warrant Officer and then worked at Lake Union Drydock for about 25 years. Jimmy & I always had fun laughing about some stupid thing in the boat business. He was a knowledgeable, neat guy and will be missed.
Doug Logan died on January 24, 2005 at the age of 76. My old friend, Doug, was a waterfront character. I ran into him because he was always buying and selling or converting objects that floated and we got to tow and moor some of them. I loved his stories – especially the one about the eagles and the bears in Petersburg. That was a Logan Classic. Or the one where he came ashore and left his rifle in the skiff and walked up the beach and all of a sudden this bear pops out of the woods onto the beach looking for his next meal and there’s Doug on the wrong end of the food chain. He goes into the water and wades out to just where his nose is out and starts the long trek around the very interested bear. He made it and the bear didn’t go swimming with him. Guess it wasn’t his time! Doug was always nice to Erik & Tom and you don’t forget that. He lived on an old tuna boat he called the Reality on the ship canal. You could readily identify him as, I believe, he always wore a Harry Lundberg Stetson. We are sorry he is gone. A picture of Doug from January of 1984 hangs in my office – what’s interesting is the photo just to his left which is of the steam tug Gleaner which he bought from Foss when it was named the Erik Foss. Sure shows we’re all connected at the hip.
What can we say but they all made a difference, it was an honor knowing them and we’ll miss them.
Neat Stuff:
Well, Margie & I have been married 21 years now – what a wonderful life it has been with each other. We both think we’re the world’s best partner, friend and spouse.
We all wish you a very healthy and happy New Year – the rest of it falls in line if you have your health!
Come by and see our expanded tugboat museum. It’s not open to the general public since it is our business offices, just bring your tugboat badge or even better some tugboat photos for the head curator.
Sincerely,
Mark, Margie, Erik, Tom, Chris, Al, Sandy, Dusty, Tracey, Adair, Brett and Mr. Whiskers
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