Tag: Western Flyer

The boat takes shape

We took a very quick shopping trip to Port Townsend this week for boat supplies. Before we left we stopped to check on restoration progress for the Western Flyer, the boat made famous by John Steinbeck on a research voyage with marine biologist Ed Ricketts and memorialized in their book “The Log from the Sea of Cortez” in 1940.

The boat has come a very long way since I first photographed her in July 2013. Take a look at her sorry condition then.

The framing that was applied last summer is now being covered with cedar planking from huge, thick boards. The wood appears to be milled on site. Her original siding looked like this four years ago.

The restoration has progressed steadily since I visited last August here and in June 2018 here.

Her stem and stern are being rebuilt with a strong lumber, probably something like purple heart.

Her deck house is separately undergoing restoration nearby. It’s hard to get a clear shot into the little building but the galley, seen through these small windows, is taking shape nicely.

The Western Flyer is being restored by the Western Flyer Foundation. Click here for more information about the foundation, the history of the boat, and plans for her next life.

It’s wonderful to see the beautiful workmanship as this boat is being given a new life.

Western Flyer, six years on

I’ve followed the restoration of the Western Flyer, a boat long associated with John Steinbeck and marine biologist/ecologist Ed Ricketts, as it has undergone extensive restoration at Port Townsend Shipwright’s Co-Op in Port Townsend. I took a peek in the open bay last week and discovered that apparently all its framing has been replaced. It looks like the stem is next. Signs warned to not enter the work space so this is as close as I could get. Click here to take a look at previous posts that tell the storied history of this boat, including a link to the sorry state of the boat when I first saw it in 2013.

John Steinbeck’s boat, five years on

Almost five years ago I first posted about Western Flyer, a boat with an interesting provenance as a vessel chartered by author John Steinbeck and marine biologist/ecologist Ed Ricketts in a seminal research exploration of the Gulf of California in 1940. The voyage became the basis of a book they co-authored, “The Log from the Sea of Cortez.” The boat had fallen on hard times, as illustrated in my first photos, taken in 2013, and reposted last year. Its fate was in flux until the Western Flyer Foundation was formed and intervened to save it.

Western Flyer has been housed at Port Townsend Shipwright’s Co-Op where the Western Flyer Foundation has been undertaking its restoration. When I’d seen it last, almost a year ago, it was much improved and plans were afoot to retrieve white oak lumber to replace rotted wood.

When I saw Western Flyer again last week new lumber was coming into place.

You can see replacement wood both on deck and inside the hull. There’s a lot of work to be done but the Foundation also has high hopes for the boat’s future to continue as an education and research vessel.

Western Flyer, four years later

After my post about it four years ago, Western Flyer’s fate moved into uncertainty. We read in the local newspaper that the real estate developer who intended to restore it and move it into a hotel in Salinas, California stopped paying fees to keep it in Port Townsend. Its fate seemed perilous.

As desperate as its condition was, the Western Flyer was nonetheless an iconic vessel with a storied history that joined a lion of American literature, John Steinbeck, with Ed Ricketts, an equally great figure in American marine biology and ecology. It couldn’t be left to crumble into a pile of rotted wood and barnacles. In 2015 the Western Flyer Foundation was created.

The Western Flyer has been moved into the Port Townsend Shipwrights Coop where it is being painstakingly restored. However, it’s not being rehabbed just for the sake of renovation. The foundation plans to regenerate the vessel to a state of the art marine research vessel which will bring a marine lab and educational platform to coastal communities. Students will engage in marine science with the assistance of a remote operated vehicle and below decks workshop. A committee of qualified teachers, scholars, scientists, and engineers are collaborating to design curriculum specializing in the Western Flyer’s multi-disciplinary nexus: American literature, marine biology, and maritime history.

It’s an exciting project and the enthusiasm of Western Flyer’s proponents is infectious. Click here to go to the foundation’s website with a video and additional information about the project.

I plan in coming months to drop by to see Western Flyer’s progress.

Repost: John Steinbeck’s boat

Today I’m offering a backward glance at a post from 2013, when I looked at and provided information about an historic boat in Port Townsend. Rather than link you back to the original post, I’m providing it to you today. Tomorrow I’ll give you an update on this very interesting vessel. Here’s my post from July 23, 2013:

If you’re familiar with the work of writer John Steinbeck, you may know “The Log from the Sea of Cortez,” a book he wrote with marine biologist Ed Ricketts after a research voyage they made in 1940. Steinbeck and Ricketts chartered the Western Flyer out of Monterey, California for six weeks and the Log is a narrative of the experience. After a long and interesting history, the Western Flyer has arrived in the Port Townsend shipyard, unquestionably worse for wear.

The Western Flyer is a 76-foot wooden purse seiner built in Tacoma in 1937. Over the years it worked as a fishing trawler in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska and as a survey vessel along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. Eventually renamed the Gemini, the boat finally ended up in Washington’s Swinomish Slough where it sat idle beginning in 1997.

A real estate developer who owns several buildings in Steinbeck’s hometown, Salinas, California, bought the Western Flyer in 2010 intending to restore and return it to Salinas, to display inside a restaurant and boutique hotel. The boat ran out of patience last year. In September it sank in 30 feet of water. A crew raised it, pumped out the water, and put a temporary patch where planks had given way. In November it sank again.

Coated with barnacles and sea life inside and out it was hauled to Port Townsend earlier this month. Estimated restoration is $700,000 and a nonprofit group hopes to raise funds for the work. As you can see, they have their work cut out for them.

John Steinbeck's boat

If you’re familiar with the work of writer John Steinbeck, you may know “The Log from the Sea of Cortez,” a book he wrote with marine biologist Ed Ricketts after a research voyage they made in 1940. Steinbeck and Ricketts chartered the Western Flyer out of Monterey, California for six weeks and the Log is a narrative of the experience. After a long and interesting history, the Western Flyer has arrived in the Port Townsend shipyard, unquestionably worse for wear.

The Western Flyer is a 76-foot wooden purse seiner built in Tacoma in 1937. Over the years it worked as a fishing trawler in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska and as a survey vessel along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska. Eventually renamed the Gemini, the boat finally ended up in Washington’s Swinomish Slough where it sat idle beginning in 1997.

A real estate developer who owns several buildings in Steinbeck’s hometown, Salinas, California, bought the Western Flyer in 2010 intending to restore and return it to Salinas, to display inside a restaurant and boutique hotel. The boat ran out of patience last year. In September it sank in 30 feet of water. A crew raised it, pumped out the water, and put a temporary patch where planks had given way. In November it sank again.

Coated with barnacles and sea life inside and out it was hauled to Port Townsend earlier this month. Estimated restoration is $700,000 and a nonprofit group hopes to raise funds for the work. As you can see, they have their work cut out for them.