❖ COMMENTS ON TUG KATY's LOG of 5 JULY 2011 ❖

Steam tug KATY on left, 

Undated original photo from the archives of S.P.H.S.©

"Reading your log about the KATY was special. She was in Deer Harbor about 1949, raising the old BELLINGHAM that sank alongside the cannery. The cannery crew brought the boat in alongside the dock to work on, bow to the north. The tide took a deep breath and the bow stuck in the mud, so the stern went down a bit lower to where the dried-out seams let water visit inside. The owner said that anyone who removed her could have her----Damn, I wanted that boat, but the Navy wanted me and I really didn't have oars long enough to row a 120-foot boat, or smarts enough to know how to raise it.  The KATY showed up and the diver wrapped the stern in canvas, pumped out some water at low tide, and up she came on the incoming tide. Simple!!  Sadly, she was burned in Elliot Bay for Seafair a couple years later.
      I was impressed at the time when the KATY skipper/diver told me his boat was in her eighties. So, you shook my memory tree again. " 

The first log entry of the KATY and her owner/skipper
Above comment by L. W."Corkey" North, retired mariner/local historian, Deer Harbor, Orcas Island.