While many of us were still rubbing the sleep out of our eyes Friday morning, Hanjin Geneva anchored in Port Angeles Harbor.
She is a 912-foot-long cargo ship with a load capacity of 5,744 shipping containers on her 131-foot-wide deck.
The German-flagged vessel weighed anchor about an hour later after having resolved a minor mechanical issue in the engine that developed while transiting the Strait of Juan de Fuca on her way to berth T-46 in Seattle.
Loading logs
Port Alice moored to the Port of Port Angeles’ T-Pier on Monday.
This is the second time this year that the bulk cargo ship has been to Port Angeles for a load of logs bound for the Asian market.
This time around, the Hong Kong-flagged vessel, which is 577 feet long, is being loaded with about
5 million board feet of logs that were harvested off private lands owned by Merrill & Ring.
For the first couple of days, the ship was being loaded from the waterside as well as dockside.
But by midweek, the terminal area had become a large parking lot as log trucks queued up waiting to be offloaded.
The lashing down of the logs took place at week’s end and was expected to get under way this weekend.
A sad demise
Esther Marie, the 46-foot sailboat that has been anchored in the west end of Port Angeles Harbor for more than three years is now sitting on the hard at the Port Angeles Boat Haven.
She was declared a derelict vessel and is now in the custody of the Department of Natural Resources, which will oversee her dismantling and disposal under the state’s Derelict Vessel Removal Program.
The past few years have not been kind to Esther Marie.
The gale-force winds of last November caused the boat to drag her anchor, and the errant vessel was corralled by the Coast Guard in the area of the fish pens off Ediz Hook.
She was secured to the Coast Guard’s buoy at the west end of the harbor until the winds subsided.
Then the owner of the sailboat, Doug Zimmerman, again anchored her in the area from where she had broken free.
Just before Christmas 2008, she broke loose from her moorings and ended up on the rocks at Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles.
For two days, the boat was thrashed upon the rocks in front of the Red Lion Hotel by the ebb and flow of the tides.
A good Samaritan, Fred Rodolf, brought his 76-foot Alaskan tour boat, Lu-Lu Belle, around from the Boat Haven and towed the stranded boat off her perch at high tide.
Once free of her rocky prison, Esther Marie was temporarily moored between two float-guide pilings at City Pier.
Found to be free of any significant damage, she was moved out into the harbor — where DNR subsequently took control of her.
More on the lingo
The English language is rife with words and phrases with maritime origins that date from the days of sailing ships.
I recently was thumbing through a couple of books that my friend Jim Elliott — a former resident of Sequim who now lives in Bend, Ore. — gave me and came across a word that is in common usage that has strong maritime heritage: opportunity.
In the days of sail, ships depended upon the incoming, or flood, tide to take them into port.
If they arrived early or late, they had to stand off outside of the harbor’s entrance to wait for the right time.
The ancient Romans referred to this as ob portu, which literally translated means standing off port, waiting for the moment.
It has evolved in English as the word opportunity, meaning the right moment.
Other repairs
Platypus Marine Inc., the vessel-repair business at Marine Drive and Cedar Street in Port Angeles, hauled out Grand II last week.
Charlie Crane, Platypus director of sales and marketing, said personnel will paint the bottom of the 42-foot Grand Banks for its Sequim owner and will install new transducers.
Beautiful Day, another boat out of Sequim, has been at Platypus for the past seven weeks.
The 37-foot Sun Young was extensively damaged in the Jan. 31 explosion of Escale, a 38-foot boat moored at John Wayne Marina.
The owner of the destroyed boat, Keith Bryant, subsequently succumbed to injuries suffered in the explosion.
According to Capt. Charlie, personnel replaced a number of the windows and frames on Beautiful Day and made repairs to the bulkhead of the flying bridge and to the starboard side of the superstructure.
They also replaced an exterior sliding door, an interior cabinet door and a sink in the galley.
The boat is now back in the water, much to the delight of her owners, Julie and Cliff Houser, who call Beautiful Day home.
Platypus Marine had two other boats at its Port Angeles facility that were damaged in the explosion and totaled by the insurance company.
Mia Amori and Olympic Princess, both 38-foot Bayliners, were removed to the jetty at the Port Angeles Boat Haven and will soon be auctioned off.
Barge stowed
Platypus last week hauled out the Navy work barge YC-1646 and stowed it in one of the company’s satellite buildings.
The barge, which is 110 feet long and 32 feet wide, had to be moved into the building by Robbins and Co of Seattle, an enterprise that specializes in raising and moving houses and relocating or repositioning heavy pieces of equipment.
Capt. Charlie said personnel will replace the hatch covers and sandblast the entire barge prior to applying a new coat of paint.
Personnel also will remove the running lights that were installed on the barge for her recent voyage from the New Orleans Naval Station to the Everett Naval Station.
Pushing around
On Tuesday, Tesoro Petroleum provided bunkers to ATB Commitment, a 129-foot tug that interlocks with the 600-foot tank barge 650-6.
Although ATB Commitment is classified as a towing vessel, in reality she is a pusher tug that does what the word implies: She pushes the tank barge as opposed to the more traditional method of towing it with a cable.
ATB vessels are easily distinguishable because the wheelhouse sits much higher than that of a typical tug — so much so that they resemble little lighthouses as they push their way along their journey.
The Crowley-owned vessels are involved in the coastal trade, transporting petroleum products along the West Coast and to Hawaii.
Harbor refueling
On Wednesday, Tesoro refueled Polar Adventure, an 894-foot crude-oil tanker, and on Thursday, it bunkered Stellar Eagle, a 623-foot cargo ship that is due in Subic Bay, Philippines, on April 12 with a load of grain she picked up in Grays Harbor.
Today, Tesoro will have its refueling barge alongside Polar Discovery, a sister ship to the Polar Adventure.
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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.