Tag Archives: Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op
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
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
