For the past two to three weeks, several patrons who rode the car-passenger ferry MV Coho to Victoria and back to Port Angeles have contacted me to ask about the logs that are stowed on the dock at Ogden Point.
That’s the point at the entrance to Victoria Harbour where the cruise ships normally moor.
Most of the inquirers assume that shippers are preparing to export logs from that location, and they question the perceived conflict for space during the cruise ship season that will begin soon.
Here’s the interesting answer:
The logs came off Dry Beam, a 610-foot cargo ship laden with approximately
5 million board feet of logs when she departed Longview in Southern Washington in late January.
The ship was headed for Japan when she was hit by a rogue wave about 300 miles northwest of Vancouver Island.
The wave, thought to be nearly 50 feet high, hit hard on the port side, causing a shift of the deck cargo toward the starboard side.
The shift overloaded the stanchions that serve to restrain and secure the topside load.
The stanchions were no match for the weight of the shifting load, and a fair amount of the logs fell overboard — and in the process destroyed many of the stanchions.
The mishap occurred in the dead of night Feb. 2.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy and the Canadian Coast Guard’s JP Tully responded to the ship’s mayday call and escorted the vessel to Ogden Point.
Barge cranes were then called in to offload the remaining deck cargo and stow it on the dock.
When Dry Beam was deemed seaworthy, she got under way for Kashima, Japan, where the cargo in her hold will be offloaded and repairs undertaken.
As for the logs remaining at Ogden Point, they will soon be loaded aboard another vessel bound for Japan, and the dock will be readied for the cruise ship season well in advance of the arrival of the first scheduled liner, Crystal Serenity, on April 17.
Tug hauled out
Platypus Marine Inc., the repair company at Marine Drive and Cedar Street in Port Angeles, hauled out the tug Mitchell Hebert, which hung in the slings of the company’s 330-ton Marine TraveLift for about seven hours.
During that time, Chuck Solarek, a marine surveyor from Seattle, was able to perform soundings of the hull, which will be reviewed by a prospective buyer from the East Coast who has an interest in acquiring the 34-year-old vessel.
Mitchell Hebert is 79 feet long and has been operating out of the submarine base at Bangor for more than 22 years.
Although the tug was used primarily to assist in the movement of Trident submarines, the vessel has been called upon by the military to move military assets throughout the Puget Sound including Everett Naval Station, the Army base at Tacoma and Naval Magazine Indian Island on Port Townsend Bay.
The tug is owned by Petchem Inc. of Wilmington, N.C. During her tenure in Puget Sound, she has been captained by Ray Longaker.
Ray said the contract the company operated under required that he and the tug’s crew be ready to respond to a vessel-assist request on one-hour’s notice.
Ray, though not one to toot his own bosun’s pipe, is proud of the fact that the tug was never late for a job, nor did she ever miss an assignment.
Looking at the tug, one of the standout features is the fancy work on the bow that is known as bow pudding.
Bow pudding is the fendering system used on the tug’s front to lessen the shock of contact when she is pushing another vessel.
Variances of the nomenclature include “tugboat beard” and “moustache fender.”
I asked Ray who made the fendering system. He did.
It turns out that he is a former Navy boatswain’s mate who retired in 1988 as a command master chief and undoubtedly has a mastery of knots that would be the envy of many a mariner.
Yacht on the hard
Platypus also hauled out Orient Express last week, and she is sitting on the hard this week.
According to Capt. Charlie Crane, Platypus’ director of sales and marketing, the 78-foot yacht is a Grand Harbor and hails from Roche Harbor in the San Juans.
He said personnel will install a freshwater pump and wax the hull after the paint crew gives Orient Express a fresh coat of bottom paint.
The sky show
Wooden Boat Wednesday at Port Townsend’s Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Foundation continues this Wednesday with a reprise of a program that was held Jan. 18 titled “Stargazing & Star Hopping.”
On that day, two-thirds of the people who signed up to attend the presentation kept away by the effects of the heaviest snowfall of the season.
For those who missed it the first time around, Mark B. Peterson, a cartographer, astronomer and planetarium designer, formulated a program that is tailored to the novice who would like to learn to recognize and identify objects in the sky.
Mark, a Port Townsend resident, will provide a basic understanding of why the sky appears as it does using a nontechnical approach for identifying our Northwestern-latitude constellations and planets.
Additionally, he has developed a star finder, which is simply a moveable disk that rotates to line up by month, day and time of year to reveal how the sky appears at any given time during the year.
Wooden Boat Wednesday is a free event that begins promptly at noon and typically lasts for 90 minutes.
Seating is limited and requires advance registration by phoning the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St., Port Townsend, at 360-385-3628, ext. 101, or by sending an email to chandlery@nwmaritime.org.
Out in Port Angeles Harbor
Tesoro Petroleum on Monday provided bunkers to Evergreen State, a 617-foot-long petroleum-products tanker.
Tesoro also refueled Polar Discovery, an 894-foot crude oil tanker that was scheduled to arrive in Valdez, Alaska, on Friday afternoon.
Tesoro wrapped up the day by bunkering the log ship IVS Kwaito. She is 580 feet long and is due in the port city of Tianjin, China, on March 30.
On Friday, Tesoro refueled the Crowley-owned ATB Vision, and Saturday, the 466-foot-long Seattle Reefer, formerly known as Andes Mountains and Greenland Rex, was bunkered.
New role for old motor
Todd Ritchie, who works with Chuck Faires in the harbormaster’s office at the Port Angeles Boat Haven, has had way too much time on his hands this winter.
Todd had a 1963 Thompson lapstrake runabout that was 18 feet long and powered by twin 55-horsepower Homelite outboard motors.
He had that boat for about 20 years, and despite the fact that he used it fewer than a dozen times, wherever Todd’s early career took him, that boat was sure to go.
Without exposing the raw underbelly of Todd’s early experiences with tides and currents, there came a time when the boat could no longer stay afloat.
Soon it was incorporated into his children’s play area, and the motors were stowed away in a quiet corner of his workshop.
This winter, one of those motors was put onto a stand, and Todd refurbished the cowling, buffed up the lower unit, removed the top end of the motor and replaced it with a mailbox.
After running a pipe through the assembly, it now sits by the side of the road, never again to feel the thrum of its engine or experience the spray of the salt air.
Instead, it quietly and patiently awaits its daily visit from the postal carrier.
________
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.
