The Sinking of The F/ V Talache

  Last Friday I  got a call from my daughter who works at the city. She mentioned that her boss, whose brother is the harbor master said a boat had sunk in the harbor. When she asked which one, she was told it was the Talache. I'm quite familiar with that boat. Thirty years ago at the time I was buying the Bonnie J, two of my friends were also buying old wooden boats. It was what we could afford at the time. My friend Marlin Ryder bought the F/V Ricky Ray, and my friend Buffalo Bob Holden bought the Talache. He picked it up from a guy down in Sitka, who used to tack Masonite on the hull down by the water line so he could go fishing in the winter and not worry about ice cutting the hull. The boat was built with cedar from Port Orford Oregon. It is a double end troller, with both the bow and stern of the boat tapered. It's nice in a following sea, but it was a little narrow and tippy if it was at the dock. When the trolling poles were extended with stabilizers though, it was a fairly comfortable ride as I understand. At the time it was painted John Deere green with a black top house, and it looked sharp. It has a five bladed prop and I've watched it glide through the water without leaving a trace of a wake. It was quiet and smooth and could really catch fish. When Buffalo decided to move south he sold it to a gal who had some experience commercial fishing on her uncle's seine boat. She fished it for I think two years and for whatever reason lost interest. Eventually she sold the aluminum trolling poles to a fellow who was using wood ones, and when it became evident she was never going to use it to fish again, she sold the mast to me. Over the years she's lived off and on on the boat, although not so much in the winter in the past few years. I have to go past the Talache to get to my boat on the float, and for several years I've noticed that there was kelp growing on the bottom of the boat. I don't care to interfere,especially in other folks business, but when a problem can no longer be avoided, I open my mouth. I mentioned my fears for the well being of the vessel to the owner and was assured that a haul out was in it's future, but it never materialized.  It's been a number of years since the boat was hauled out of the water and the hull scraped and painted and new zincs applied. You can't neglect maintenance on a wooden boat, it's just the nature of the beast. Without zincs the fastenings that hold the planks on deteriorate and things like the prop and bow stem and rudder get eaten up by electrolysis. There are parasites called Torrido worms that eat through the wood  and leave holes. A friend who has a stall across from the Talache said at 3:AM the boat was floating, when he looked again at 6:00, it had sunk.  It's tragic to have such a fine old boat sink. I was down at the harbor the day it sank and saw one of the local guys diving on the boat trying to get a rope around it so it can be raised and pumped out. The weather has been so  cold and windy this past week though, that he couldn't dive again until it gets warmer. I told my friend Buffalo about the sinking and he mentioned that if memory served him correctly, the man he bought the boat from said that he had poured over a thousand pounds of lead in the keel for ballast. He was asking what would come of the boat, and if it was going to be trashed, he thought I should check on getting the lead. If that's truly the case, I'd love to buy the lead from the owner. I could have enough cannonballs to last me the rest of my fishing career. I'm not sure what's going to become of the Talache. Until it's raised and inspected to see the cause of the sinking I don't suppose much will be done with it. She had a Deutz German diesel engine in her. I'm not sure about the tranny. I suspect that neither will be salvaged, although I don't know. Since it wasn't running when it went down, maybe the engine could be cleaned up and used again. I'm sure any personal items- books, bedding, electronics are useless now. I can't imagine the trouble and money it would take to dry out the boat inside thoroughly enough to prevent mold, and I suspect if there wasn't money to do annual maintenance, there won't be money to put it into running condition anymore. To the best of my knowledge, they don't make wooden fishing boats anymore. One by one they're disappearing from the harbors, replaced by mass produced fiberglass or aluminum craft that lack the individuality and character that each old wooden boat possesses.  Much like the dinosaurs that once walked the earth they'll vanish and become just a memory in an old fisherman's tales or a picture in a book. There's no two ways about it, it's a real loss.