Port Angeles Yacht Club recently announced the new bridge that took the helm on Jan. 1.
Bob Morrison will serve as commodore, Paul Mowery will be the vice commodore, and the rear commodore will be Randy Volker.
Dave Miller will serve another term as the secretary, and the perennial favorite serving as the treasurer for the sixth consecutive year is Al Davis.
Steve DeBiddle is the past commodore, and the trustees will be Paul Downes, Wade Bamer and Pete Christensen.
The Port Angeles Yacht Club was formed in 1937 and held its meetings in the Legion Hall on Ediz Hook until 1960.
From 1961 to the present, members have been congregating at their clubhouse, which is located on the north side of the parking lot behind Castaways Restaurant.
From its inception, the club has been led by a board of directors more appropriately referred to as a bridge. The figurehead and typically the public face of the club is the commodore.
Membership in the yacht club is open to all boating enthusiasts, be they powerboaters or wind sailors, and also includes those who have only a picture of a rowboat.
Commodore Bob said their club meets in an informal setting, is inexpensive and that there is great camaraderie among the membership.
He encourages anyone with an interest in boating to visit the club and tour its facilities.
Waterfront loss
One of the more commonplace sights around the Port of Port Angeles — that of Jerry Demetriff driving a gray pickup truck between the port’s properties — will soon be absent from the waterfront.
After nearly 13 years with the port, Jerry is retiring from his position as the operations and public works manager Feb. 3.
Jerry has spent the overwhelming majority of his working life on or near the water.
As a young man, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and became a radioman, achieving the rank of first class.
In 1980, Jerry attended Officer Candidate School and traded his enlisted status for that of an officer — thus becoming, in military parlance, a “Mustang.”
After retiring from the Coast Guard as a lieutenant commander in 1999, Jerry worked briefly for Horizon Air.
He then came to the port as an administrative assistant for Mike Nimmo, the marine facilities marketing manager, and subsequently moved into his current position.
Looking back on his time with the port, Jerry said he was fortunate to have worked with a committed group of dedicated individuals and was proud of what they were able to accomplish.
Jerry said he is particularly pleased with a number of projects he worked on, which included the building out of the log yards at Terminal 5 and Terminal 7 as well as upgrading the electrical capacity at Terminal 1 to accommodate the power needs of the large ships that come to the dock for repairs.
Jerry said he and his wife, Louise, plan to do some traveling in their retirement, which includes visiting their two sons, one who lives in Hawaii and the other in Virginia.
Jerry, showing the mental acuity that has marked his career, has decided to begin his wanderlust years by visiting his son in Hawaii in March.
Filling up?
One of the questions I’m asked with some frequency — most recently by Tom and Sherry Webb of Port Angeles — is how much fuel do the cargo ships and tankers take on when they are being refueled by Tesoro Petroleum?
The short answer is sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.
Typically, Tesoro Petroleum offloads two types of fuel to the various vessels it services.
Marine fuel, which is known by a number of monikers, the most common of which is bunkers or bunker oil, and marine gas oil, which is better known to the likes of you and me as diesel fuel.
With few exceptions, both types of fuel are sold by the metric ton.
Each metric ton is equivalent to approximately 6½ barrels of oil, with each barrel holding 42 gallons.
The exact conversion of metric tons to barrels is dependent on a lot of science that is beyond my ability to convey.
The amount of fuel a vessel requires can range from a few hundred metric tons to a few thousand.
A ship that is in transit between two far-flung ports may occasionally come to Port Angeles for just enough fuel to get to its destination, perhaps as little as a couple hundred metric tons.
In other instances, ships heading out across the globe may take on a few thousand metric tons.
For the most part, bunkers are used for a ship’s propulsion, and diesel is the fuel consumed by the auxiliary equipment aboard ship such as the generators and many of the hydraulic pumps.
Out in Port Angeles Harbor
Thursday morning, the tug Loco Grande and her tow, the 322-foot-long tank barge Dbl 77, moored to Terminal 3.
They were there just long enough for the pusher tug Adriatic Sea to slot into her notch on the barge and get under way.
All of the vessels are attached to the Pacific Division of K-Sea Transportation, which is headquartered in East Brunswick, N.J., and transport petroleum products along the West Coast and throughout the state of Alaska.
Early Friday morning, SR American Progress moored to the Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal 1 North.
According to Margie Mirabella of Washington Marine Repair, the topside repair company at the foot of Cedar Street, the 575-foot tanker will be in port until later tonight so that craftsmen can change out some piping.
Monday, Tesoro Petroleum bunkered Kang Chang, a 623-foot cargo ship that is due in Subic Bay, Philippines, at the end of the month.
In the afternoon, the Crowley-owned articulated tug and barge Sound Reliance, whose overall length is 587 feet, was refueled.
On Tuesday, Tesoro provided bunkers to Evergreen State, a 617-foot petroleum products tanker with a 61-foot beam.
Later in the day, it provided bunkers to High Mars, a 600-foot tanker that is flagged in Hong Kong.
Thursday afternoon, Tesoro refueled Polar Discovery, an 894-foot crude oil tanker that is due in Valdez, Alaska, in the wee hours Tuesday morning for another load of oil for the West Coast.
Today, Tesoro will bunker American Progress at Terminal 1 and Port Alice, a 577-foot cargo ship that is in port for a cargo of logs.
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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.
Email dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
His column, On the Waterfront, appears every Sunday.