Tag Archives: John Steinbeck
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
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
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
