Came across these photos today while cleaning up my office at home. They were taken several years ago with a cheap film camera with digital scans put on a CD by the processing company.
The full-service boatyard in our marina, Seaview North, started out with a 35 ton Travelift, which they still have and use for boats like ours.
But a year or so after the yard opened they acquired this monster. It was a good investment as Bellingham has a small but active commercial fishing fleet including a number of 58' Alaska limit seiners like the one pictured.
Consequently Seaview North does a fairly lively business hauling and working on commercial fishing boats, large yachts, and things like whale watch boats and such. They are also one of the few boatyards in the Puget Sound area today that has experienced wooden boat shipwrights on its staff.
The surplus 60' LCM-6 was owned by good friends of Carey's and ours. The owner, Gary, bought the barge (as landing craft are called in the San Juans) to start a hauling service. He, his wife, and their two young daughters built the rooftop pilothouse for better visibility over the ramp.
They operated the LCM-- named Scruff when they bought it but renamed Mud Puppy by their daughters-- for a number of years in the islands. IIRC mud puppy is the local name for a little fish that lives in the tidal zone in Puget Sound.
Gary's specialty was hauling heavy construction equipment to tiny private islands where the owners were building large homes. He and his wife would load and unload the concrete trucks, dump trucks, bulldozers, flatbeds with building materials, backhoes, etc. while one or the other of the daughters, who when they started the business were something like 13 and 15, operated the LCM to hold it on the beach in the currents that swirl around these little islands.
I took the first three shots of the LCM when it was being put back into the water after Gary did some prop and keel cooler work on it. Power for this particular boat is two 6-71s. It was a very windy day so my wife and I helped Gary and his wife take the LCM from the Travelift around to the commercial basin in the harbor for fuel.
The last photo shows the Mud Puppy in the configuration it was in when Gary bought it. At the time they lived on Sucia Island so they named their barge company for the little drying bay in front of their house, Mud Bay. The LCM is entering Mud Bay in the photo.
The full-service boatyard in our marina, Seaview North, started out with a 35 ton Travelift, which they still have and use for boats like ours.
But a year or so after the yard opened they acquired this monster. It was a good investment as Bellingham has a small but active commercial fishing fleet including a number of 58' Alaska limit seiners like the one pictured.
Consequently Seaview North does a fairly lively business hauling and working on commercial fishing boats, large yachts, and things like whale watch boats and such. They are also one of the few boatyards in the Puget Sound area today that has experienced wooden boat shipwrights on its staff.
The surplus 60' LCM-6 was owned by good friends of Carey's and ours. The owner, Gary, bought the barge (as landing craft are called in the San Juans) to start a hauling service. He, his wife, and their two young daughters built the rooftop pilothouse for better visibility over the ramp.
They operated the LCM-- named Scruff when they bought it but renamed Mud Puppy by their daughters-- for a number of years in the islands. IIRC mud puppy is the local name for a little fish that lives in the tidal zone in Puget Sound.
Gary's specialty was hauling heavy construction equipment to tiny private islands where the owners were building large homes. He and his wife would load and unload the concrete trucks, dump trucks, bulldozers, flatbeds with building materials, backhoes, etc. while one or the other of the daughters, who when they started the business were something like 13 and 15, operated the LCM to hold it on the beach in the currents that swirl around these little islands.
I took the first three shots of the LCM when it was being put back into the water after Gary did some prop and keel cooler work on it. Power for this particular boat is two 6-71s. It was a very windy day so my wife and I helped Gary and his wife take the LCM from the Travelift around to the commercial basin in the harbor for fuel.
The last photo shows the Mud Puppy in the configuration it was in when Gary bought it. At the time they lived on Sucia Island so they named their barge company for the little drying bay in front of their house, Mud Bay. The LCM is entering Mud Bay in the photo.
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