www.steinbecknow.com
A Special Presentation by Michael Kenneth Hemp
Disclosure: Michael Kenneth Hemp, dba The History Company, represents the owners of these artifacts
4/18/24
The Western Flyer at Western Boat Building Company on the waterfront at Tacoma, Washington, May 1937.
|
Despite
lengthy efforts to locate a naming donor for the Western Flyer's
iconic navigational artifacts collection acquisition and subsequent
donation to a non-profit maritime entity, we
are now in the process of putting the Fry Family Collection of Western
Flyer Artifacts up for public auction. Efforts have not achieved a
permanent public exhibition location at either the "Home of the Western
Flyer" on the historic Tacoma waterfront or the City of Monterey, new
home port of the Western Flyer.
Therefore,
with sincere regret that the artifacts will now be going to public auction
with the likely outcome that they may never be exhibited in public
again. The auction house will be announced soon. If you are interested
in information regarding making a pre-auction offer or to be kept current on the progress to
auction, please contact historical consultant Michael Hemp at (831) 236-2990.
|
THE ARTIFACTS
BRASS FLYING BRIDGE WOODEN HANDLED WHEEL AND HELM STAND
WOODEN BOXED FLYING BRIDGE PORTABLE COMPASS
FLYING BRIDGE ARTICULATED BRASS PROPULSION CONTROL SHIFTER
DECK HOUSE MAIN COMPASS
ARTIFACTS ORIGINS
| In
the fall of 1975, the purse-seiner "Gemini" rounded the breakwater and
entered the harbor at Homer, Alaska. Working on shore was a young
fisherman, Dennis Fry. When he looked at the Gemini he had no idea this
was the re-named Western Flyer made famous for its role in the 1940
expedition by John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts to Mexico's Gulf of
California, or by its historic name, the "Sea of Cortez"– a recognition
which would come much later. But as Dennis stood looking at the
Gemini's entrance to he harbor he explains, |
|
"A
kind of beautiful. One of the beautiful days you get in the fall time
and it was a change of the equinox and we have huge tides, big tides. We
always had them that time of year. And we're down there at the harbor
working and a light northeast was blowing, you know, making a little
glitter on the water and all shiny in the sun. And we're working when
somebody said, "Look at that, Dennis!" and I turned to look around and
here comes the Gemini in to the harbor. You just got to picture this
because it was a once in a lifetime thing to see. Comes around the
harbor, comes in there and I go 'Wow, what a beautiful boat' and it
swung around and backed down and shut down there to Whitney-Fidalgo's
dock and unloaded salmon and some stuff. Oh, I just dreamed about a boat
like that because it's so beautiful..."
— Cannery Row Foundation Symposium 2016 at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station |
Crabbing rigged Gemini at Homer, Alaska 1976 Fry Family photo
|
Early
the following spring fate visited the Fry's. Clarence Fry concluded an
agreement with Whitney-Fidalgo canneries to buy the Gemini. This
acquisition followed a number of previous smaller fishing boats owned by
the Fry's. This one was built in Tacoma as the Western Flyer in 1937
and renamed Gemini in 1979. Though clean and beautiful, she did need
some updates. Most crucial was a complete replacement of its
navigational and steering systems. The original bicycle-like chain and
complicated sets of gears from the deck house and its flying bridge
wheel assembly and controls connected to the rudder, were removed and
replaced by the much more modern hydraulic systems in use enabling her
to venture confidently into king crabbing in Alaska’s Bristol Bay.
|
| The
update resulted
in the removal of the entire brass flying bridge wheel and deck house
helm components and the chain steering system's complex brass and bronze
gear
systems both behind the deck house wheel an in the lazarette under the
stern's deck that controlled the movement of the rudder. All of it was
hauled to the brass "gear pile" behind the Fry house in Homer. Two
enterprising young men were ultimately struck with the same urge to
keep some of it. Dennis selected items that went into his basement for
storage. Jim Herbert, an early crew member, asked Clarence Fry in the
late 1970s if he could keep a bronze gear component still in the pile.
In 1990, when Dennis and Vonnie Fry were leaving the Alaskan fishing
industry, Dennis borrowed a cannery hoist to load the last items into
their 40-foot shipping container: the Western Flyer/Gemini artifacts
bound for Hayfork, near Redding, California. Since their return from Alaska, the Fry's "Tripple-D Trucking" has been in the logging truck business all over mountainous northern California. Dennis was located though a convoluted search resulting in referrals from former Gemini crew members by historian Michael Hemp. The artifacts were studied, confirmed, substantiated, appraised, and organized in a plan to place them in a suitable maritime museum in Tacoma or a suitable Monterey entity for permanent public exhibition. From the outset the family determined strongly in keeping the artifacts together as a collection. In 2017, a professional maritime appraisal of $68,732.00 was conducted near Seattle. A 2023 appraisal addendum increased the conservative value to $75,638.00. |
Dennis was pinned in this truck for four hours. Lucky racoon.
Cannery Row Foundation
CANNERY ROW SYMPOSIUM 2016
Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station
| Dennis made a special presentation at the Cannery Row Foundation's CANNERY ROW SYMPOSIUM 2016 at Stanford University's historic Monterey Bay Boat Works Auditorium in a surprise public unveiling of the Western Flyer Artifacts for the very first time. His highly entertaining "old skipper's" power-point lecture is available on YouTube along with many expert speakers at this extraordinary Western Flyer - Sea of Cortez focused event. |
PRESENTERS ORDER
CANNERY ROW SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM
By Robbie Behrens
— photographer unknown
First hands on the flying bridge wheel:
Richard Astro, Bob Enea, Dennis Fry, Michael Hemp
THE ARTIFACTS:
| Michael Kenneth Hemp (Cannery Row Foundation) |
Master of Ceremonies |
| Prof. Richard Astro (Drexel University) |
Keynote: "Breaking Through" |
| Prof. Steven Webster (Stanford/Monterey Bay Aquarium) |
Sharing Ed Ricketts' Addiction to the Sea of Cortez |
| Prof. Bill Gilly (Stanford/Hopkins Marine Station) |
Voyage of the "Gus D" in the wake of the Western Flyer |
| Dennis Fry (saved Western Flyer/Gemini artifacts) |
"Tales of an Alaska skipper of the Western Flyer and What I've got to show for it" |
| Lunch, Press Conference |
Western Flyer Photo Exhibit: Pat Hathaway & Petrich Family Collections |
| Allen Petrich (Grandson of the Western Flyer Builder) |
Western Boat Building Company & Pacific Boatyards History |
| Michael Kenneth Hemp (Cannery Row Historian) |
Ed Ricketts' business contact cards (2 boxes) recovered from his 1936 lab fire |
| Don Kohrs (Hopklns Marine Station Library Specialist) |
The Making of Ed Ricketts' Second Edition of "Between Pacific Tides" |
| John Gregg (Marine Geologist saved the Western Flyer) |
Western Flyer owner's mission update and its educational future |
| Prof. Susan Shillinglaw (Center of Steinbeck Studies, SJSU) |
"Steinbeck's Ricketts and Ricketts' Steinbeck" |
CANNERY ROW SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM
By Robbie Behrens
— photographer unknown
First hands on the flying bridge wheel:
Richard Astro, Bob Enea, Dennis Fry, Michael Hemp
THE ARTIFACTS:
— Devin Armstrong / The History Company photo
Martha
Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies,
SJSU
Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, SJSU
Tony
Berry at the flying bridge wheel
post-launch Tiny Colletto at the wheel
with Tony Berry on the Sea of Cortez 
— MK Hemp photo
Casting on the top of the flying bridge helm stand makes this from the Western Flyer
| Log from the Sea of Cortez [Chapter 2] "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 housing. 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 [skipper]. 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
|
|
On
the expedition to the Gulf of California, better known to Steinbeck
followers as the Sea of Cortez, John bunked with Hall "Tex" Travis in
the engine room, the place he states is so clean and neat with all the
tools hanging in their proper places that it imbues him with confidence
in the capabilities of his bunk-mate, the boat itself, and its skipper
Tony Berry. John's judgement was well placed. He was soon to learn that
not only Tex but also the skipper of the nearly new Western Flyer–who help
build it– was equally well acquainted with the myriad working parts of
the exceptionally well-built Croatian vessels and its equipment for which
south Puget Sound purse-seiners were famous. A majority of Monterey's
sardine purse-seiners were constructed in Washington's south Puget Sound in
and near Tacoma.
The
faint vibrations in John's hands while holding the flying bridge wheel, the
engine's sister vibrations humming lowly under his feet, and occasional
use of the heavy articulated brass engine shifter's mechanical feeling
of direct but remote connection to the engine room far below had to make
for a lasting, if undeclared, impression on him. These intimate tactile
connections with the Western Flyer had to have signaled a totally new
realm of diversion, perhaps even freedom, from the storm of dread
burdening him since the reaction to the publication of "Grapes of
Wrath." The Western Flyer was his escape vehicle.
|
THE FLYING BRIDGE BOXED COMPASS
— MK Hemp photo
— MK Hemp photo
— Petrich Family Collection
Tony Berry, his father Frank Berry, and A. M. Petrich (Partners in the Western Flyer)
Tony Berry, his father Frank Berry, and A. M. Petrich (Partners in the Western Flyer)
|
Tony
and his father, Frank, were not without boat building experience when
they became 50 percent partners with Martin A. Petrich of Western Boat Building
Company on the Tacoma waterfront in 1937. The Berry family's previous
experience began in 1904 with the "Nome," an early fish-trap tender by
the Barbare yard, followed by the "New Rustler" built at Martinac in
Tacoma in 1909. The New Rustler was destroyed along with the Old Town
Tacoma dock by a naval vessel. The Navy took its time to compensate the
Berry's for the destruction of the New Rustler so they were forced to
acquire the 42-foot "Challenger" from the Martinac yard and operated it
as a fish trap transporter until the traps were outlawed in the early
1930s.
But
the Berry's were ready to build in 1937, as partners with Martin A.
Petrich, owner of the Western Boat Building Company on the Tacoma
waterfront. In doing so they acquired real navigational compass technology
matching the cutting edge design and construction of the Western
Flyer—a classic feature of the purse-seine building prowess of Croatian
boat yards from south Puget Sound building customized sardine
purse-seiners specifically for the Sicilian dominated Monterey,
California, sardine fishing fleet.
On the voyage to the Sea of Cortez, except in rare rough weather – almost all on the Pacific Ocean going to and from Mexico's Gulf of California – the skipper's course for the Western Flyer was set and guided by the flying bridge boxed compass. A close watch on the boxed compass required constant adjustments for wind and currents with the flying bridge wheel. Once on the Sea of Cortez, the crew paired up for wheel-watch duties. Steinbeck was paired with skipper Tony Berry; Ed Ricketts was paired with engineer Tex Travis; deckhand Sparky Enea was paired with his closest friend, deckhand Tiny Colletto. Navigation techniques proved frustrating for deckhands Enea and Colletto on their watch hours. Unaccustomed to navigational skills as deck hands on Monterey's purse-seiners, they often performed their shifts with disturbing distractions and lack of attention such as when, more than once, they caught fish while on watch from the flying bridge with the Western Flyer drifting off course; not without skipper Tony Berry's considerable consternation. |
THE FLYING BRIDGE BRASS ENGINE SHIFTER
— MK Hemp photo
| Another
of the navigational artifacts from the Western Flyer's original
chain-steering system of brass and iron gears, levers, and chains is the
flying bridge articulated engine shifter. The heavy brass drop-arm
lever resides atop a sturdy rod near the flying bridge wheel connected to
the engine output below. Lifted to horizontal and pushed forward, the
lever engages propulsion forward; neutral to stop; or movement back
through neutral to reverse. This heavy brass lever is articulated
to hang down when not engaged in use and raised to horizontal to shift
the engine output as needed, especially at docking or when tying up to
another vessel. This system of engine control from the fly-bridge
bypassing the deck house was replaced along with the brass flying
bridge steering wheel and compass operation by a hydraulic navigation
control system at Homer, Alaska, in 1976 by the family of fisherman and
boat owner Clarence Fry. |
THE DECK HOUSE MAIN COMPASS
— MK Hemp photo
| The
main compass resided centered on the deck house shelf behind the main
steering wheel. From inside the deck house portholes provided a view
over the bow sufficient to see the horizon but not the 360 degree view
from the flying bridge deck on the roof above. The wooden main deck
house steering wheel and the brass flying bridge wheel were slaved,
mechanically connected, so they both provided exactly the same steering
control to the gear-sets and chains that controlled the rudder. This was
the navigational control system replaced by the Fry's in 1976 with a
version of today's hydraulic systems and electronic guidance. The future
of these iconic artifacts from one of the world's best known vessels,
thanks to Pulitzer and Nobel wining author John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, the father
of Ecology and John's closest friend – and prominent characters in half a dozen
of his novels – will be decided
soon. Thank you for your interest in this historic move to auction. |
INTERESTED PARTIES
A professional antique nautical appraisal is available by
Roger Ottenbach's
NAUTICAL ANTIQUE APPRAISAL SERVICE
of
CUTTYSARK NAUTICAL ANTIQUES
Seattle, Washington
www.cuttyantiques.com
2017 Appraisal: $68,638.00
2023 Appraisal addendum: $75,638.00
2023 Appraisal addendum: $75,638.00
Appraisal and Addendum on request
Serious pre-auction offers will be considered.
Contact Michael Hemp at (831) 236-2990
or mkhemp@thehistorycompany.com
Contact Michael Hemp at (831) 236-2990
or mkhemp@thehistorycompany.com
ESSENTIAL REFERENCES
The book that should be on every Steinbeck reader's bookshelf
Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck, Viking Press 1951
Two books that provided the earliest historical accounts
of the Saga of the Western Flyer
CANNERY ROW THE HISTORY OF JOHN STEINBECK'S OLD OCEAN VIEW AVENUE AND ITS CONNECTIONS TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST By MICHAEL KENNETH HEMP The History Company 2022 • 5th Edition since 1986 |
THE WESTERN FLYER STEINBECK'S BOAT, THE SEA OF CORTEZ, AND THE SAGA OF PACIFIC FISHERIES By Kevin M. Bailey University of Chicago Press 2015 |
And the core website and organization devoted to the Western Flyer:
Western Flyer Foundation
Western Flyer Media
Please share this Special Presentation by
www.steinbecknow.com
If you are seriously interested in acquiring these artifacts
you may make a pre-auction bid. Serious offers only considered.
Please contact
Michael Hemp at: (831) 236-2990 or
mkhemp@thehistorycompany.com
This has been a Special Production of
THE HISTORY COMPANY
www.thehistorycompany.com
Michael Kenneth Hemp
"Making history every day"
CANNERY ROW • JOHN STEINBECK • EDWARD F. RICKETTS • WESTERN FLYER • SEA OF CORTEZ
HISTORICAL RESEARCH • ARTIFACTS • CONSULTING • HERITAGE MARKETING • MEDIA & PHOTOGRAPHY • PUBLISHING • LECTURES
Thank you for your interest
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