The boatyard many fishermen who ply the waters of the Pacific Northwest or Alaska in wooden boats choose for maintenance and repairs is Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op in Port Townsend, Wash.
At the yard this September, several wooden halibut schooners had been hauled out awaiting work this fall. Among them was the 62-foot Grant built in 1924, “making it 100 years old this year,” noted Melanya Nordstrom, the Co-Op’s social media and advertising representative. The Grant was also in for deck repairs, including corking, replacing a few hull planks, and topside paintwork.
The Grant might be 100 years old, but she’s a youngster compared to three other halibut schooners built in 1913 that were also hauled out: the 86-foot Vansee, the 84-foot Polaris, and the 76-foot Seymour. The Vansee is getting its “annual maintenance and a little bit of deck work and some planking,” Nordstrom said. The Polaris will have some paintwork and the Seymour will get annual maintenance.
It’s not just halibut schooners that are being hauled at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op. Conventional house-forward designed vessels include the 1940s-built 55-foot Barbara, a salmon and halibut vessel out of Petersburg, Alaska, with the bottom done in the rather unconventional “cross planked” style. Instead of running fore-and-aft, the bottom planking goes out at 90 degrees from the keel to where it intersects with the side planking at the turn of the bilge that’s running fore-and-aft. Last year, the Barbara received new planking in the bow and forefoot.
Then there is the St. John II, a halibut and black cod boat that was built in 1944 at Hansen Boat Co. in Ballard, Wash. It received a new foredeck last year and, this year was in for some hull planking. Since the late 1970s or early ‘80s, the 60-foot St. John II has been operated by the Raymond Olsen family, consisting of Raymond, Jerry, and Peter, said Nordstrom, and now “they are training their fourth generation of Olsens.” That would be another Raymond who’s just turned 18 and previously fished on school breaks.
The Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op was started in 1981 by eight guys, each a working owner. Their primary business is repairing wooden boats, though they also work on metal vessels. The owner count is now 12, and the company has 60 employees.
This year, the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op sent some of its crew on a couple of trips to Alaska for emergency engine repair work. Nordstrom said there’s currently a discussion with the Alaska owner of a wooden boat built in the 1940s about a “very large above-the-waterline planking job.”
The discussion centers around whether the planking “work will happen in Port Townsend or Alaska.” Nordstrom said if it’s Alaska, “it will require at least three guys” going there.
