“Our first problem was to charter a boat. It had to be sturdy and big enough to go to sea, comfortable enough to live on for six weeks, roomy enough to work on, and shallow enough so that little bays could be entered. The purse-seiners of Monterey were ideal for that purpose. They are dependable work boats with comfortable quarters and ample storage room.” John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez
Moss Landing, Monterey Bay: The first thing I noticed standing on the deck of the Western Flyer was the distinct scent of genuine marine varnish on the brightwork that’s been warmed by the sun. If you’ve spent any time around marinas and boats as I have, it’s unmistakable.
Everywhere.
I had taken note of this remarkably clean fishing trawler tied up to the floating dock here in Moss Landing earlier in the day. The beautifully painted white carvel planking and green trim, the clean stainless marine hardware and, of course, the brightwork that I could see from the pier had made an impression.
It looked as if it had just come off the ways, but nobody builds working boats like this anymore. It’s just not practical.
I noted the curiosity of the situation, a beautiful working boat that doesn’t look like it’s been to work at all, but I needed to move onto the work at hand, which was a photo shoot elsewhere at Moss Landing.
After a while, someone mentioned that the ‘Flyer’ was open today for tours, and did I want to come aboard?
Of course I did. As I climbed aboard, the aroma of that warm varnish rekindled old memories of my days hanging around sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay and I was, well, hooked.
A little background.
The Western Flyer is the boat John Steinbeck travelled on along with biologist Ed Ricketts as they took a 6 month tour of the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez) in 1940. It’s the setting for a book by Steinbeck and Ricketts, The Log from the Sea of Cortez.
I’m walking through an astonishing restoration of a boat that was abused for years along the Pacific Coast as a journeyman purse seiner, slowly languishing into disrepair, finally ending up sunk to the waterline in Alaska, a fitful home to hundreds of barnacles that peppered the boat, inside and out.
(Image above courtesy Gary Lindstrom, S/V Kestrel)
It was rescued by John Gregg who spent a million dollars to buy the boat, as is, and another 6 million restoring it to its magnificent condition that I’m mesmerized by today.
Almost every wooden plank was refitted with sustainably harvested White oak, Douglas fir and Purpleheart wood, all fastened to the new spine of the boat, which is a single, massive piece of Douglas fir. Let’s just say that the entire hull was rebuilt.
The stove is the same brand that was originally in the boat; this one was found somewhere along the pacific coast, and placed in its correct original position, where no doubt, Steinbeck and Rickets and the rest of the crew cooked their meals.
“Her engine was a thing of joy, spotlessly clean, the moving surfaces shining and damp with oil and the green paint fresh and new on the housings. The engine-room floor was clean and all the tools polished and hung in their places. One look into the engine-room inspired confidence in the master. We had seen other engines in the fishing fleet and this perfection on the Western Flyer was by no means a general thing.” John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez
The power plant has been upgraded since Steinbeck was aboard too.
The Flyer is now powered by a hybrid engine arrangement that’s a combination of a turbo-charged John Deere marine diesel engine and two 50 kW electric motors, with a hybrid transmission that lets the boat run between the diesel engines or the quiet electric motors as the situation needs. When the electric motors are not powering the Flyer through the ocean, they can be reversed to act as generators for the 3,000 pounds of batteries now stored as ballast, where the day’s catch used to be stored as the Flyer was returning to the piers in Monterey.
So what’s the magic here?
You have this unlikely combination of literary history, artisanal craftsmanship and digital technology beautifully interwoven into the 130 tons of waterborne laboratory, that is, once again, riding the waves for research, much like it did when Steinbeck and Ricketts were aboard some 80 years ago.
And I suspect, the brightwork radiates the same aroma that it did 80 years ago as well.
Photo Factor: I’ve always liked architectural photography, and shooting interiors on the Flyer is just an extension of that. But the ‘Flyer’ is a kind of ‘tiny house’ that requires mounting a seldom used 10.5 mm lens that I carry in my bag for special occasions. Of course, getting these interiors shot is a full two-step process with the second step that of twisting the distortion out of the images in post. We also bounced a strobe off some of the wood to fill in the gaps in lighting, which helped a small bit, but it was hard to keep the strobe and the pole it was on out of the shots with that crazy wide lens.
The video was shot with an iPhone 16E at 4K resolution using a small DJI gimble and edited with DaVinci Resolve.
There is much, much more to this story and if you’re still reading this post (or listening to it) to this point, you’ll want to read more about the restoration, so I’ve included a directory of links from the array of outfits involved in restoring the vessel to its astonishing condition today.
The Western Flyer homepage:
https://www.westernflyer.org
Palmer-Johnson Power:
https://www.pjpower.com/news/western-flyer-still-in-the-game
John Deere:
https://www.deere.com/international/en/stories/power-connect/repowering-the-western-flyer/
National Fisherman:
https://www.nationalfisherman.com/boats-gear/still-in-the-game
CBS Mornings YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYkD60sbByw
Gentedimare 2.0 (Italian)
https://www.gentedimareonline.it/western-flyer-john-steinbeck/
S/V Kestrel:
https://svkestrel.com/2022/06/27/fishing-vessel-western-flyer/
Northwest Maritime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RkQHalxUog
KBTC Public Television:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkJ4JWdll4
