While Amberjack was in the yard for bottom paint this old timer came in for some new, expensive looking teak planking. I don’t know what the massive 20’ long center cut was for but it was an impressive piece of wood. The boat was so large I couldn’t fit it all into the frame and had to take two images.
This old timer is kept in good repair and still working as a cannery tender.
Wow, 1918...I don't see too many boats older than my 62. Aside from restorations to the classic mahogany boats and the occasional Jersey skiff.
Thanks for sharing. Old wood boats like that are a labor of love...around here most marinas will not take them as guys walk out on the boats when something goes wrong leaving it to the marina to discard them, a shame but no market for many of them. Last one I saw was an old Post, the "Ambor Jean". Guy kept it immaculate...get right up to it she looked like a glass boat from every angle. Anyway, the guy wound up with terminal cancer and a short time to live.
He met a guy in a bar, selling the boat to him for $1.00. Amazing, in a real bad way how fast the boat started to show her age, within two years motors didn't run, the bilge pump ran more and more, paint peeled in spots. Then the son came to help fix...things came apart, panels scraped free of paint left to sit for weeks in the elements. He couldn't pay for winter storage and that was the last we saw of the ol "Ambor Jean"
Memories...that and dad sanding and painting his 21' wood boat every year.
The Pacific NW has quite a few older wooden vessels, some of them still working. I can drive over the Ballard Bridge and look down into Fishermans' Terminal and see half a dozen large wooden halibut schooners, most over 100 years old now, on the halibut docks. That's a long time dodging rocks, storms, deadheads, fire etc. They overwinter in Seattle, get their maintenance, then head up to Alaska for the halibut longline season.
What I appreciated most about Emancipator was no bow thrusters!