Shilsholed

While I was biking to work the other day I saw what looked to be a genormous boat headed for the Ballard Locks. I pulled into the locks to watch. All photos up here.

The Northern Victor is not a pretty boat, it looks like it had some bizzarre addition put on it…

The crew looked as if they’d been out for a while:

I found this history of the boat:

The Northern Victor is the largest of Icicle’s processing vessels at 8902 gross tons. She was built in 1945 as the cargo vessel “Marengo” in Wisconsin for the U.S. war effort. Released from the U.S. Reserve Fleet, she was converted in 1972 to the oil well drilling ship “Ocean Cyclone” in Beaumont, Texas, adding a drilling tower and other drilling related equipment, a new engine room, 40 feet in length and 20 feet in beam to bring her to present dimensions of 380 feet long and 70 feet wide. After a successful career drilling for oil in the Middle East and South America, the vessel was retired in Brazil in 1986. Previous owners took the vessel to South Africa for removal of drilling related equipment in 1988. The Northern Victor was returned to the United States and converted to a fish processing vessel in Panama City, Florida, in 1989 and 1990. Since July 1990 the Northern Victor has operated in Alaska and produced various seafood products as the second largest processing vessel in the United States fishing industry. Icicle acquired the Northern Victor in late 1999 and subsequently completed major processing equipment additions and improvements that have made her the most versatile processing vessel in the U.S. industry. With quarters for 222 crewmembers she processes Alaskan Pollock at her primary operating base in the Aleutians Islands near Dutch Harbor. An onboard rendering plant produces a high quality fish meal and fish oil from the normal processing waste by-products and insures a maximum recovery from the purchased fish.

It was an impressive site to see such a large boat in the locks. Very good tug work.

All photos up here.

Andy and I went out again the other so he could test some (ok tons) of work he’d done on his motor boat. He races (sailboats) and went around Blakely Rock way closer than I’ve had the nerve to. Every year, during the Blakely Rock Race at least one sailboat goes a ground. Supposedly this is a pretty cool dive site as well.

I spent twenty minutes watching this cormorant on J/K dock try to each a (rock?) fish that was clearly too big. Even the gulls ignored it after the cormorant gave up. Poor fish was alive during most of this. Click photos for larger view.

My friend Andy on K-Dock put his boat back in the drink. Even though I’ve done this a hundred times I’m still amazed this works… All photos up here.