|
|
| Built in Astoria in 1946 , Katie Ford is Still Going Strong! |
|---|
|
|---|
 | | | Katie Ford |
|
By Peter Marsh
After Larry Barber died in 1996, his widow Elizabeth asked me if I'd care to "clean up the mess in the basement." I agreed, and down there I found boxes and boxes of photos Larry had taken from the 1930s to the 1960s. I spent many fascinating though occasionally tedious hours sorting, filing and learning more about the maritime history of Portland. and the Lower Columbia River.
But some pictures were more mysterious. When I found a half dozen pictures of a yacht named "Katie Ford" all taken near Astoria, plus a copy of a 1940s magazine article written by Larry, I put them in a folder and didn't think much more about it.....
Until I was in the office of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival a couple of years ago and saw that distinctive name on a list of yachts that had attended a previous wooden boat function. The secretary passed my inquiry on to the owner who lived in Victoria B.C.
Ian Stewart, a Q.C. (attorney). had owned the yacht for over 30 years, and that year was Katie Ford's 60th birthday, he informed me. He sent me two more stories on the boat, one old and one new.
I added them to the file, but it wasn't until another e-mail from Mr Stewart in 2007 that he had reluctantly listed his boat for sale reminded me that I'd better start writing! I started by paying a visit to the Astoria Marine Construction Co. (AMCCO) boatyard where the Katie Ford was built, and talked to the owner Don Fastabend about the yard's 75-year history.
In 1937, AMCCO owner Joe Dyer hired marine engineer Heine Dole. He was born in Hoquiam in 1910, showed a mechanical aptitude, and went on to graduate from Stanford with a degree in mechanical engineering in the early 1930s.
Heine was living in Olympia and sailed his 32' cruiser Chantey from Puget Sound to the Columbia River where he would work--with occasional breaks--for the next 20 years.
In 1941, as the tide of war rose in Europe and Asia, the U.S. Navy began a minesweeper-building program. Here was an opportunity for AMCCO to join the war effort and hopefully get into the black. Joe Dyer flew to Washington, DC to convince the US Navy that his yard could handle the work. He was a complete outsider from a small town, but he succeeded!
On April 1, 1941, the Navy awarded AMCCO a $1,312,000 contract to build four YMS 137-foot wooden minesweepers. Heine Dole was promoted to vice-president, with responsibility for engineering and production planning. The size of the yard more than doubled in the next few months with about 400 men on the payroll. The pace of construction increased and AMCCO achieved the amazing record of twelve minesweepers launched in only 18 months.
The next navy contract was for fifteen 47' tugs and according to the yard's records, they were all completed in the last three months of 1943. Another four sweepers were delivered in 1944. After that, the Navy brought in some wooden craft for repair, but the tide was turning in the Pacific war and things began to settle down on Youngs Bay.
When not busy with his many responsibilities, Dole relaxed by trying to sketch his next boat. "In a weak moment," he had sold the Chantey to an Olympia yachtsman named Bob Schoen. He named the design "Katie Ford" after his grandmother--because he liked the way the words sounded.
But the actual type of boat she should be proved more difficult. According to Larry, she started out as a motor-sailer, became a schooner, then evolved into a lean long-ended cutter with a heavy displacement, a tall rig and a dog house that Dole quipped "grew up to become a pilothouse."
"The ink on the peace treaty is not going to be very dry when her keel is laid!" he vowed to Larry in a story that appeared in Pacific Motor Boat in May 1944.
Joe Dyer didn't have to wait so long, in 1945 he found time to complete his own CROD, the Tom Tom--which his son Tom Dyer sailed on Puget Sound through the 1990s. Today, she is owned by JoLee and Dennis Ford who keep her in Longview.
The design of the Katie Ford was now a handsome 45 foot cutter that would be "big enough to live aboard comfortably full-time, and seaworthy enough to carry along the north-west coast." The next year, Dole found a spot to lay the keel of his dream boat in the back of AMCCO's cavernous shop. The 7800-lbs keel was cast iron, the timbers consisted of heavy "Wolmanized" (chemically preserved) fir.
The machine shops produced steel floors and steel knees that were galvanized and bolted to the keel. The planking for the hull and cabin, deck beams and bulwarks came from Alaska yellow cedar logs that had been purchased long before, then cut and air-dried in the yard for several years. The decks and cabin sole were teak, the interior paneling polished knotty white pine trimmed with Honduras mahogany.
Katie Ford was launched in the spring of 1946--one of the first big peacetime yacht to be launched in the northwest. The designed displacement was 12.4 tons with an 8500 lbs keel.Some 8000 man-hours of work went into her construction, and her value was estimated at $35,000--a huge sum in 1946 dollars.
Larry Barber wrote a short photo-story for the Oregonian and was given an assignment by Pacific Motor Boat magazine to write a complete review that appeared in August 1946. From this, I learned that the yacht was well equipped with every modern power convenience like a Gray 4-52 gasoline engine with a CO2 fire-suppression system, a Universal generator that ran a 32-volt Kelvinator refrigeration system, an Intervox radiotelephone and a radio direction finder. To make it feel more like home, there was even a tiny tiled fireplace tucked under the folding cabin table.
This was how Heine described the yacht's profile: "Katie has moderately long ends mainly because I like the looks of them, and having been to sea in both short and long-ended boats, I can't see any difference in the discomfort of the two types." Dole had plenty of vacation time coming to him, and soon took off for Canadian waters with three friends for crew.
In the winter of 1947, he agreed to draw the lines for the 40' Janie for Don Schafer, an attorney in Portland with a family that loved to sail. They had started out on Joe Dyer's 28' centerboard cruiser the Columbia River One Design, so Schafer wanted a centerboarder big enough to go offshore. The result was the Janie, and something of a breakthrough in northwest yacht: a 12-ton pilot house centerboard offshore-racing yacht with a 4' hull draft, 12' beam, and a spacious deck house. In 1951, the Janie was the first Portland yacht to enter the Transpac.
But on the world scene, the cold war had heated up and the Navy was aware that its WWII minesweepers were vulnerable to advanced mine technology. They ordered a new 172-foot AM-class vessel that had to be built without using a single piece of magnetic material. AMCCO was chosen to be the west coast lead yard for the program, so Heine Dole returned to Astoria. A new young man named Don Fastabend arrived in 1950. He's still there today in the front office, keeping the business going.
The original contract was for two ships, AM 480--the USS Dash and AM 481--the USS Detector. Eventually AMCCO received a contract to build three more for the Royal Netherlands Navy. These ships were to be built of laminated oak and fir. Once the vessel was fully framed, a triple layer of fir planking was installed: two opposing diagonal layers, and one fore and aft layer.
In the mid-50s, Heine Dole left Astoria for a second time. He sailed the Katie back to the south of Puget Sound, this time to Gig Harbor, where he set up an office as a naval architect, always leaving himself plenty of time for cruising the Inland Passage in the summer. In the late 1950s, he drew two more unusual yachts for Oregon owners. The ketch Ebb Tide was based on "the pearling luggers of Thursday Island in the South Pacific." Dole frequently let commercial types influence his ideas for sail and power boats.
It was certainly a one-off, which pleased the owner Eben Carruthers, who had invented and manufactured many of the machines that revolutionized fish canning. The Ebb Tide was built by John Omundsen in the Carruthers plant in Warrenton and launched in 1957. (Today Carruthers is still building fish-processing machines, but now they are computer controlled.) Probably Dole's finest centerboarder was the 47' Patronilla for William Forrest of Roseburg. It completed the Transpac in 1959 along with the Janie and the Ebb Tide and raced to Hawaii twice more in the early 60s. Don Fastabend recommended I contact Joe Dyer's son Tom for further information about Dole's designs. Tom became a professional marine engineer; he has worked in the Seattle area for 40 years in all facets of the business.
He informed me that Patronilla is now owned by John Nolan who keeps her in Seward AK, and Chantey is owned by Michael & Patricia Owen who keep her in Olympia. (Tom is available for consultation through his website www.headwaymarine.com.)
At the age of 50, Heine met his future wife Peggy, a Canadian, and through her joined the Royal Victoria Y.C. in 1962. They continued to sail the Katie until 1970, when Dole finally sold his treasure after a partnership that had lasted 25 years. Milt Henderson of Portland honored a long-standing agreement with Dole for first right of refusal, and offered him the AMCCO motor yacht Evening Star in exchange The Doles accepted, and enjoyed her for 31 years until 2000, when they sold her to Tom Dyer, his wife Lise, and Joe's grandson, Ben. (Heine Dole died in 2003.)
In the fall of 1972, Katie Ford came into the lives of the Stewart family of Victoria, B.C. "She became part of the family," he told me.
Since then, she has been maintained without any modifications except to sails and engine--now a Perkins 50 HP 4.108. All the deck gear is original: the halyards are still of wire operated by mechanical drum winches and traditional Highfield levers are used on the running backstays. The main boom is fitted with the old-style bronze worm-gear roller reefing, the 32 volt Lee H. Bennett anchor winch is still operational.
Minor changes include roller furling on the fore sails to make life easier for the single-hander and likewise her main sail has full battens for ease of reefing. Katie's original color was blue but this was changed to white about 14 years ago. "The current owners have lovingly maintained her since 1973. Katie Ford has cruised extensively on the coast of British Columbia, through the Gulf Islands, San Juan Islands, Queen Charlotte Islands and Puget Sound. She has meandered the inland water ways of Desolation Sound, Princess Louisa Inlet, the Broughton Archipelago, Knight Inlet and bravely weathered the West Coast of Vancouver Island," Stewart wrote.
In a major re-fit in 2001, the transom was removed by Bent Jespersen Boat Builders in Victoria and a new aft deck fitted, followed by new teak deck planking. Katie Ford still draws compliments wherever she goes and was rewarded with the "Best Overall Sail" prize in the Classic Boat Festival in Victoria BC in 2002 and 2004.
Perhaps a Columbia River yachtsman might be interested in bringing her back to this area? You can see more of thsi classic yacht at http://www.katieford.ca/Site/Katie%20Ford.html
B & W picture
The Katie Ford docked at PYC 1946 or 1947 by Larry Barber
|
| Go to top. |
|
PDF (1MB)
|
