Fishing Vessel Tacora

 

                                            

"My boat in the banner above was 90 years old last year.
Huh? No, I am not the original owner." Jim S. 

  

By posting old pictures and stories here with a fishy, nautical twist,
we hope to provoke a nostalgia most old salts cannot resist.

1949. She was raised in Gastineau Channel where she rested on the bottom for seven months near Juneau. After a terrible collision one stormy night with the 85-foot Forester, a fish-packer and mail-boat, the Tacora suffered a huge gash and sank within minutes.

There were four people and a puppy-dog on board at the time of the collision. Sadly the dog perished. Years later Harold Jones, owner-skipper made his story famous in the Alaska Magazine (formerly the Alaska Sportsman).

Some History . . .    

Of premium old growth fir, the fishing vessel Tacora was built in 1918 in Everett, Washington. She's kept her original name long after defying the perils of her purpose. Named after an 18th Century Barquentine, she was built by John A. Eastman. The oldest active license in the state of Washington, "No. 17", belongs to the Tacora. Nearly 40,000 commercial fishing vessels have since been licensed by the state of Washington.

 

 

In the 1920's and 1930's the Tacora was 38 feet long. Deep and narrow, with a plumb bow stem unless she had a load on, which made the stem slope slightly back from vertical. Horseshoe stern, a small 6X6-foot house barely forward of amidships. A cozy oil-heated foc's'le with portholes. She packed 7 tons.

The Tacora had sunk the first time in Puget Sound, and was raised before Harold Jones bought her in 1946. The old Kermath 6 was saved from corrosion in barrels of fresh water. The block was in one barrel, and the head was in another.

When Harold got her running, he heard rumors about a halibut bonanza up off Vancouver Island. So, he rigged the boat for longlining hoping to cash in on that whopping ten cents a pound in the round.

   

 

 

 

May, 2008

Tacora heads for the Travelift to haulout and get ready for offshore tuna.

 

 

 

 

 

                April, 2002. I paid $3,500 "as is".

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

 

The reconstruction to the right took place in Everett in 1959-1960, a decade after rebuilding and extending the stern 2-feet after the collision.

You could say all that was left of the original boat from 1918 was the garboard and 2 planks up each side. And of course the keel, which was refitted with an iron-bark worm shoe and a 1X6-inch steel shoe over that. New bow stem is of Australian gumwood. You can't drive a nail into it. Harold wanted to run at night and be able to hit a log full bore without suffering any damage. 

The planks you see are Alaska yellow cedar, except the top one had to be oak. Why? To maintain an exaggerated sheer, it had to be 2-1/2" thick at the top and 1-1/4" on the bottom, this one had to be steam-bent.

The fasteners are square galvanized boat nails. I pulled a few of these in 2005 to check their condition. They were in great shape, only lost the galvanizing and maybe 5% to rust. Not bad after 45 years.

So here's my boat grimacing at you when she was 42 years old, sank twice, about to actively endure another half a century or more in the fleet. Who says old wood fishing boats can't prevail over tin and tupperware?

 

There are signs in this 1960 picture on the left that suggest Harold Jones had been successful at trolling for salmon in Alaska the previous 14 years.

That's his new station wagon. Inside that newly-remodeled boat is a factory-fresh Detroit 371 engine coupled to a new Capitol Reduction Gear.

A major rebuild like this today in Port Townsend, Washington would probably cost $100,000.

One example of Harold's success is confirmed by this awesome photo. And last year Harold told me this by phone. "My best coho day? Seven-hundred-and-fifty. I caught 'em all, cleaned 'em all, and I iced 'em all."

No big deal compared to his present Bering Sea steel boat.

More History

In 1966 Harold sold the Tacora to a gentleman from Mercer Island, Roy Dinwiddie, for $22,000. The amount was equivalent to the cost of a new 3 bedroom tract house out West. Within a couple years Roy Dinwiddie turned around and sold the boat for $27,500. The buyer, Gene Andrews, took her from Seattle to her new berth in Astoria, Oregon.

By 1978, the Tacora trolled unfamiliar salmon grounds from Cape Flattery, Washington to Brookings, Oregon, occasionally finishing out the season offshore for albacore down off California. But for 5 years prior to 1978 she was rigged with a crab block for the Dungeness crab pot fishery so she could produce year around. At times she packed gillnet salmon on the Columbia River. At age 60 was the peak of Tacora’s career serving as a tuna boat, salmon troller, crabber, packer and longliner from the Gulf of Alaska to Southern California.

In 1979, Gene Andrews sold the Tacora on a loose contract to a young crabber, Tim Watterberg for $60,000. Andrews bought a bigger boat, the 50 foot Starfish. Tim soon had a hard time making payments, spread too thin with crab pots strung off Westport, the Willapa and the Columbia River.

1980-81 Disaster struck. Andrews' new Starfish took a huge roller broadside on the Columbia River bar. One deckhand died crashing through a window. The Starfish rolled over and sank. Read more . . .