I met with Harold Edgington of Port Angeles last week, and we chatted about his short-lived clam dredging venture with his brother, Don.
In the early 1960s, Don Edgington and his partner, Don Hendrickson, purchased a Navy-surplus LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel) in Bellingham.
During World War II, these shallow-draft vessels were used for the amphibious landing of men and material on such historic beachheads as Normandy, Anzio and Iwo Jima, just to name a few.
The two Dons brought the 36-foot landing craft to the Olympic Peninsula on its own bottom and installed a clam dredge they had purchased from Bill Harms, who operated Guilford Packing Co, a shellfish cannery next to the old ferry dock in downtown Port Townsend.
The dredge was 40 feet long with an 18-inch-wide conveyor belt that gently sloped into 6 to 8 feet of water.
It was fitted with nine half-inch water jets that churned the sand below the forward edge of the conveyor, and as the boat passed through the turbulence, the clams were blown onto the conveyor belt.
After operating the dredge for a year, Don Hendrickson sold his interest in the venture to Harold Edgington, and the brothers were in business.
They dredged for clams at Grays Marsh northeast of Sequim, Liberty Bay near Poulsbo, Useless Bay on Whidbey Island and South Point on Hood Canal.
Don and Harold also leased tidelands on West Sequim Bay from the Silver Sands Resort and the Hegg family in the area where the John Wayne Marina is located.
Harold said during the harvest period, which ran from October to March, they would get as much as a ton a day of butter clams or littlenecks.
He said they would go through a new pair of gloves during each work day, and there was never a need to trim fingernails because the sand and clams kept them worn down.
Harold also said there were always clams for the families to eat and that his wife, Denise, once lamented that she was “the only woman in Pine Hill whose clothes smelled like clam chowder.”
Butter clams were sold to Guilford Packing Co. in Port Townsend, and littleneck clams were sold to Carl Johnson in Nordland, who transported them to Seattle by truck for distribution nationwide.
Harold said clams would remain fresh for a week or more, and he understands that they were shipped to areas that attracted conventions such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Florida and Hawaii.
The Edgington brothers were only in the clam dredging business for two seasons because of a dependence on too few outlets. The clam dredge ended up at Ivar’s Acres of Clams in Seattle.
Harold redoubled his efforts in the logging industry, and Don went to work for DelGuzzi Construction.
Yet the allure of the waterfront seems to be in the Edgingtons’ DNA.
Don’s son, Ralph, is a Clallam County sheriff’s deputy and operates the 26-foot law enforcement patrol boat for the Sheriff’s Office.
Anchoring redux
Last Sunday’s column was something of a primer on anchors and anchoring ships in Port Angeles Harbor.
The column generated a number of questions that were best summarized by Sequim resident Jean Falconer’s inquiry: “Why must there be so much scope?”
To review, scope is the ratio of anchor chain (rode) let out to the depth of the water.
According to Carl Engstrom, a Puget Sound pilot, there will be approximately five times more chain in the water than the depth of the water.
Different types of anchors bite into the ocean’s bottom in different ways, but all have the same property of digging in when they are pulled along at a low angle relative to the bottom’s terrain.
This dragging is what secures the anchor to the harbor’s bottom.
For example, if the water is 60 feet deep and the anchor rode (chain) is 120 feet, then the scope is 2-to-1 and the angle is too acute to be effective.
When the ship drifts and pulls the anchor with this ratio (2-to-1) of scope, it will not drag smoothly and bite into the bottom. The result is the anchor will be pulled from the bottom with each small wave, causing it to bounce about and potentially leave the vessel far from the intended position.
If the scope is too large, the anchor will bite, or set into position, but the vessel will likely surge and drift as the forces of wind, tide and current act upon it.
Now, let’s use the same water depth of 60 feet but increase the length of the rode to 600 feet.
This gives us a scope of 10-to-1, which may be appropriate at some anchorages if winds or currents are very strong but is not the best ratio for general anchoring and likely not appropriate for Port Angeles.
The scope that is best for keeping the anchor set and keeping tension on the anchor rode is around 5-to-1. This will not pull the anchor free but will maintain tension for a safe and comfortable stay in the anchorage.
Cruise ship in winter
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve received a number of inquiries about the cruise ship that was spotted in Canadian and American waters.
Nik Dolmatoff of Port Angeles spotted the ship, did a little research and directed me to the Internet for the details.
The ship was the Sapphire Princess, which plies our waters during the summer months for the Alaska cruise ship season.
The ship spent the better part of January at the Victoria Shipyards dry dock in Esquimalt having a new pizzeria, atrium and pool-side movie screen installed.
The ship’s owners also created a space for adults only, and new carpeting and upholstery were installed throughout the vessel.
The ship left Canadian waters late on the evening of Jan. 31 and headed to Los Angeles to resume its cruise schedule.
Today, the ship is in the midst of a 14-day cruise to Hawaii.
Harbor fill-up
On Friday, Tesoro Petroleum provided bunkers to Polar Adventure, an 854-foot, double-hull crude oil tanker.
Tesoro also refueled Ever Leader, a 738-foot cargo ship with a 105-foot beam that is flagged in Panama.
On Saturday night, Tesoro bunkered Pioneer, a 728-foot bulk cargo ship that is flagged in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.
Today, Tesoro will refuel the 869-foot SeaRiver Kodiak, the oil tanker formerly known as Tonsina under previous ownership.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats and strolling the waterfronts.
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.