Search Results for: Western Flyer

Western Flyer Restoration: The John Steinbeck fishing seiner

Built in Tacoma, Washington, the state-of-the-art seiner was launched from Western Boat Building Company in 1937, destined for the sardine trade of Monterey, California. Builder and shipyard owner, Martin Petrich Sr, specialized in sturdy vessels. For Western Flyer, he used a single, 64ft piece of old-growth fir for the keel; ribs were white oak; fir planks steamed, fitted, and caulked with cotton. The boat’s strength was offset by a graceful sheer and jaunty wheelhouse. In early 1940, scientist Ed Ricketts and author John Steinbeck combed the Monterey waterfront for a vessel that would carry them, along with a small crew and makeshift biology lab, on a scientific research mission to Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. No one was willing until Western Flyer tied to the pier and her captain, Tony Berry, agreed. 12 Photos, more, >>click to read<< 15:37

Steinbeck’s famous Western Flyer sails back to Monterey after years of restoration: Photos, inside and out!

The original captain’s desk sits in the wheelhouse, where legendary author John Steinbeck may have jotted notes for his Log from the Sea of Cortez. A guy wire like the one he wrote would “sing under the wind,” stabilizes the mast. Nearby is the galley ventilator where “the odor of boiling coffee” soothed his senses. Neglected, twice sunk and now painstakingly restored, the Western Flyer – dubbed the world’s most famous fishing boat for bearing Steinbeck and his biologist friend Ed Ricketts down the California coast on an ecological adventure — returns Saturday to Monterey for the first time in 75 years to begin a new life in science education. Now docked at the Moss Landing harbor, the Western Flyer will be escorted to Monterey by a decorated boat parade, honoring an end-of-the-season fishing community celebration held the day before Steinbeck and Ricketts headed out on their six-week journey. The event will include tours of the boat, activities and live music. Photos,  >>click to read<< 10:15

The Western Flyer Returns Home to Monterey!

She’s coming home at last! After being away for 75 years, the historic Western Flyer—the sardine fishing boat immortalized by John Steinbeck’s 1951 classic The Log from the Sea of Cortez—will return to her home port of Monterey on Saturday, November 4th. “The Western Flyer was built for Monterey’s sardine fishery in 1937, and while it gained notoriety from its 1940 research trip with John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, it’s had a long and storied past as a fishing boat,” said marine geologist John Gregg, founder and board member of the Western Flyer Foundation. “Now restored with a hybrid diesel-electric engine and state-of-the-art marine lab, the Flyer symbolizes a bridge, linking Monterey’s commercial fishing heritage with its leadership in marine science and education.” When Gregg purchased the Western Flyer in 2015, the neglected 77-foot fishing vessel had sunk several times and was almost beyond repair. >>click to read<< 07:50

Western Flyer sails again

The Western Flyer left for Seattle after seven years of intense restoration and rebuilding in Port Townsend, but she will make a detour on the way to her final destination for one last visit to the town that returned her to the ocean. The boat, known most famously as the vessel writer John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts chartered for a research trip to the Sea of Cortez in 1940, had been in Port Townsend undergoing restoration since 2015. On Wednesday, the Western Flyer embarked on stage two of its rehab when it was towed to Snow & Company boat builders in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. There, over the course of the next four or five months, it’ll get a new engine, rigging, hydraulics and mechanical systems. >click to read< 12:14

Western Flyer takes another step in restoration

The first phase of restoring the Western Flyer fishing boat is nearing completion in Port Townsend, Washington, The 76-foot purse seiner was chartered by author John Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts for a biological collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez in 1940. The nonprofit Western Flyer Foundation plans to base the boat in Monterey and use it as a floating classroom for scientific studies. On Dec. 4 the cabin, or wheelhouse, of the Western Flyer was reattached. >click to read< ,,, From 2013, John Steinbeck boat rusts in Anacortes – Time has been less kind to the Western Flyer. The battered old tub, which has been called one of the most famous boats in American nonfiction, has sunk twice in the past six months and was still underwater off a dock in Anacortes as of two weeks ago. >click to read< For everything in between, >click here< 14:47

Despite Coronavirus pandemic, work continues on Western Flyer

Charged with leading the restoration efforts of the Western Flyer are of the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op. Between the two are some 56 years of hands-on experience repairing, constructing, renovating and maintaining wooden boats. “This time last year, we were framing. There had been some structural work, some of the deck beams were put in, some of the longitudinal stringers, and some of the prep work for what was going to happen when we reframed, had been already done,” Lee said. Progress on the Western Flyer was chugging right along, Lee said, with consistent crews of eight to 10 staff working at any given time, now the project has been forced to drop down to about half its previous staffing. “With coronavirus we’re down to a crew of four, >click to read< 09:08

Righting John Steinbeck’s Storied Ship, Western Flyer Gets a Plank-by-Plank Restoration and Soul Re-Infusion

In 2013, the fishing vessel Gemini, a purse seiner built in 1937, was hauled up from the bottom of the Swinomish Channel in the Pacific Northwest. The event wouldn’t have drawn much attention had this old wooden fishing boat not had such a storied past. In 1940, the novelist John Steinbeck and his friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, chartered the sardine fisher under the name Western Flyer,,, Luckily, when the boat sank for what was the third (or maybe even fourth) time in her history, she was not far from Port Townsend, the Northwest’s hub of wooden-boat restoration. The Western Flyer soon found a home at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op, and her new owner started a nonprofit foundation to oversee an ambitious—and expensive—restoration project. >Video, photos, click to read< 20:19

The Western Flyer – Restoration continues on historic boat made famous by Steinbeck book

It’s a story that keeps getting better as it is told. The Western Flyer fishing boat — made famous by John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, who chartered it in 1940 for a marine biological collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez in Baja California — is being restored at Shipwrights Co-Op in Port Townsend, Washington. “The historic restoration is well underway,” said Chris Chase, project director for the Western Flyer Foundation, the parent organization for the project. “It’s alive. People are working every day. It smells fresh.” >click to read<09:18

Work ramps up on Western Flyer

Sitting in the pilot house of the Western Flyer, the fishing boat that John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts took down to the Sea of Cortez, shipwright Pete Rust is surrounded by history. He also is surrounded by a quandary. “The difficult thing I’m doing right now is trying to figure out how to remove the house from the boat without damaging it and without losing the original shape,” said Rust, a member of the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op, which is restoring the historic boat. The goal is to take the house off the boat and frame it on the floor to rebuild and restore it. But Rust has to figure out how to do that without the structure collapsing in on itself. >click to read<11:05

Cannery Row history: Western Flyer puzzle takes shape

AR-160419841.jpg&maxh=400&maxw=667Revelations at the Cannery Row Symposium just keep getting better and better. Last year it was announced that the Western Flyer, the fishing boat leased by John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts for their historic collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez, had been purchased and would be restored and returned to Monterey Bay as an educational classroom. At this year’s event, held Saturday at Hopkins Marine Station, the wheel from the fishing boat’s flying bridge and two compasses were displayed. It was also announced that the foundation has come into possession of Ricketts’ rolodex. The rolodex is two boxes of index cards that survived the fire that destroyed his business, Pacific Biological Laboratories, in 1936. It gives a broader picture of how the marine biologist was connected to scientists all over the world. But more on that later.,, Read the article here 14:46

The Western Flyer – known as the Gemini during her Homer fishing years

Western%20Flyer%20--%20Pat%20Hathaway%20Collection-Bill%20Morgan_10A phone call from former crew member Jim Herbert informed David and Dennis Fry that the boat they fished on in the 1970s with their father was the Western Flyer — the vessel on which author John Steinbeck took the expedition chronicled in the book, “The Log from the Sea of Cortez.” In an intriguing turn of the tide, Dennis Fry will speak at a symposium about the Western Flyer that will be live-streamed on YouTube on Saturday, April 16, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Alaska Daylight Time. To the Frys, the boat was the Gemini, David said. They knew a previous owner had changed the boat’s name from the Western Flyer, but they were unaware of the significance.  Read the article here 16:48

The Western Flyer is about to be uncloaked – getting $2 million renovation in Port Townsend

Three months after the beginning of a $2 million renovation to transform the battered hulk of a boat once used by author John Steinbeck into a floating science center, those working on the project are lifting the shroud of secrecy and allowing the public to look but not touch.  “There have been no surprises on this project so far,” said Shipwrights Co-op member Chris Chase, who with Tim Lee is overseeing renovation expected to take 2½ years. “The biggest surprise is the level of public interest,” he said. Read the rest here 11:35

Steinbeck’s Western Flyer purchased, coming to Monterey

,The Western Flyer, a ship immortalized by author John Steinbeck, has been purchased by an investor who plans to restore it to its former glory and bring it back to Monterey Harbor, said Cannery Row historian Michael Hemp. “Bob and I have been working since 1983 to get our hands on the Western Flyer with basically no money and no resources,” Hemp said. “In recent years it’s been moored in a boat yard in Port Townsend, Washington, where it sank twice in the past two years.” Read the rest here 17:23

The Western Flyer has drawn the attention of a Canadian documentary filmmaker.

“This is a part of our history,” said Ian Hinkle, a former resident of Port Townsend who now lives in Victoria.  “It’s sad to see a wooden boat rotting in a yard, but it has done its part and can still communicate things that are very important,” he added. “Boats like this are important. They capture the past.” Hinkle spent Friday morning filming the outside of the vessel for use in “Reaching Blue,” a 15-minute film produced by Ocean Networks Canada Read more@PDN  16:49

F/V Western Flyer, by some accounts the world’s most famous fishing vessel is at the center of a continuing controversy

The Western Flyer, built by Tacoma’s Western Boat Building Co. in 1937 on the Tideflats, acquired its literary and scientific patina in 1940 when author John Steinbeck and a friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, chartered the vessel for a six-week expedition to Mexico’s Gulf of California. The gulf is an arm of the Pacific Ocean sandwiched between the Baja peninsula and the mainland of Mexico. The gulf is more lyrically known as the Sea of Cortez. more@thenewstribune  07:42

A piece of western Washington literary history heads back to sea

The boat John Steinbeck was on while writing The Log from the Sea of Cortez is embarking on a new chapter. The Western Flyer has been being refurbished in Port Townsend for the past nine years. Now, the 85-year-old boat is launching into Puget Sound once again. The painstaking voyage back to the sea begins with a bulldozer noisily hauling the 77-foot seiner out of drydock, inch by inch. It’s part of a journey Rom Welborn has been on since he first learned about the boat when writing a high school paper. “It changed my life and it still feels like it’s changing my life,” he said. >Video, click to read/watch< 11:27

Steinbeck boat being restored – A crew is bringing her back to life, plank by plank, spike by spike, nail by nail.

Somewhere in the Western Flyer there is a spirit, said Chris Chase, project director for the Western Flyer Foundation, the nonprofit group restoring the fishing boat that carried Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck to The Sea of Cortez in 1940. “I don’t know who it is,” said the 51-year-old shipwright. “It could be Ed (Ricketts). It could be John Steinbeck. It could be Carol Steinbeck (John Steinbeck’s first wife).” Whoever it is, something has saved the 80-year-old, 77-foot purse seiner from destruction. >click here to read< 14:31

75 Years After Steinbeck Sailed, a Boat Is Readied to Go Back to Sea

Rule 1 in the world of working wooden boats, since the days of dugout canoes and fishing skiffs, has been that when they are no longer of use or they are lost at sea, people build new ones and move on. Sentimentality and fussy restoration are rarely in the tool kit. The Western Flyer, a sardine fishing boat made famous by the writer John Steinbeck, is now on a path to breaking that pattern, as it has so many others before. Seventy-five years after Steinbeck and a scientist friend chartered the Flyer and sailed it from California to Mexico — and into literary legend,,, Read the rest here 07:58

A New Life for the Boat Immortalized by John Steinbeck

Sitting in dry-dock, covered in barnacles, is the Western Flyer, a piece of literary history that has been threatened by time, the sea, and a restauranteur. No more. “Some have said they have felt a boat shudder before she struck a rock, or cry when she beached and the surf poured into her. This is not mysticism, but identification; man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools, has in turn received a boat-shaped mind, and the boat, a man-shaped soul. His spirit and the tendrils of his feeling are so deep in a boat that the identification is complete.” John Steinbeck, The Log From the Sea of Cortez Read the rest here 15:44

The past-due rent of wrath: Boat linked to John Steinbeck becomes $7,978 Port of Port Townsend liability

As of Friday, Gerry Kehoe, the owner of the Western Flyer — which was brought into the Boat Haven covered in mud and barnacles earlier this summer — owed the Port of Port Townsend $7,877.73 in fees and has not responded to any communications about the bill, according to port executive assistant Jean French. Kehoe, a businessman and developer in Steinbeck’s old stomping ground of Salinas, Calif., purchased the Western Flyer in 2010 with the intention of using it as a tourist attraction. more@peninsuladailynews  09:31

John Steinbeck boat rusts in Anacortes

Time has been less kind to the Western Flyer. The battered old tub, which has been called one of the most famous boats in American nonfiction, has sunk twice in the past six months and was still underwater off a dock in Anacortes as of two weeks ago. Read more