❖ TENDER-TUG BERMUDA ❖

BERMUDA (center)
Showing off her lovely sheer,
location and date of photo unknown.
This image was kindly shared by 
Captain Lawrence Lowell "Larry" Crawford (1917-2011)
 a cousin to the Fowler clan,
 who grew up playing on the shores of Shaw Island.

The wooden cannery tender/tug BERMUDA was built at Hoffman Cove, Shaw Island, in 1908-1909, by boatbuilder Delbert E. Hoffman, who came to the San Juan Islands in the 1880s. The vessel was built for three island brothers, E.B. "Bert", Jr., F.E. "Gene," and William Fowler. 
      Local historians have not heard of BERMUDA ever leaving her home waters of the northwest.
      From the Master Carpenter's Certificate (MCC) filed with the federal government when the vessel owner chooses to register the new craft as a documented vessel, we learn when, where, and for whom BERMUDA was built. In an interview with one of Gene's sons, Captain Earl Fowler, late into his long life, it appeared easy for him to recollect the BERMUDA and the days his family was associated with her operation. For three commercial fishing seasons they hauled salmon for Apex Fish Cannery, owned and operated by cousin Lee Wakefield, in Anacortes, WA.
      

Tug BERMUDA and ship DOUAUMONT
Undated photo purchased from the PSMHS.
Click to enlarge.

BERMUDA was later sold to a bridge and dredging company that built bridges and engineered deep water dredging around the Sound. Several years later she was re-engined, giving up her 50-HP Troyer-Fox. She went out of registry sometime between the years 1938 and 1941. Earl Fowler, who was a lad of six when she was launched, remembers seeing her laying in Pt. Townsend when he was working on another Hoffman built tug, the EDNA.
      

BERMUDA
ON 206177
scan from an original photo
from the George Stillman family.

      Ninety years after launching, the above vintage photo of BERMUDA underway in local waters, showed up in the photo album of Earl's school buddy, George Stillman. Stillman was another Shaw Island native who "took to the boats," as a young man educated at the one room grade school.
      Thank you to Ivaloe Stillman Meyers and sister Mary Ellen Stillman Carpenter, descendants of pioneer families of Shaw Island, for sharing their knowledge of island history.
      These three images are the only known photos of the island-built BERMUDA. There are no known photos of the Hoffman yard on the south side of Shaw Island. Do you know of one? Could be a prize awarded.

1895: 
We know Hoffman was building as early as 1895 when he had just completed six new 22-ft  x 7.5-ft boats for Island Packing Co of Friday Harbor. They were described in the Islander  newspaper as "heavy strip-built with oak gunnels and washboards with a small mainsail only. They row very easily for a boat that size & run like a deer, under canvas, in a light breeze."

1901:
Hoffman built a tug, ARTHUR G. for Joseph S. Groll by commuting across the channel to Fisherman's Bay, Lopez Island during 1900, with launching the following February. Does anyone have a photo of this vessel??

BERMUDA
ON 206177
US Documentation:
47.15' x 11.8' x 4.7'
G.t. 14.70
N.t. 10
Launched with 50-HP Troyer-Fox gas engine.
Built during 1908 and 1909 by D.E. Hoffman (1870-1915,) Master Carpenter, [at Hoffman Cove,] Shaw WA.
Source of dimensions: MCC purchased from the National Archives, PNW, Seattle, WA. 

❖ Island Built Tug KLATAWA ❖ Home Port, Friday Harbor

Tug KLATAWA (O.N. 210245)

Photographer, date, and location, unknown.

Scan purchased from 

the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society©

Please see P.S.M.H.S. if you'd like to purchase a copy.

This gal's name was spelled CLATAWA when her documentation papers were sent to the US Department of Commerce and Labor, but when the Master Carpenter's Certificate arrived home, the 'C' was struck and her name was KLATAWA.
      The gas screw KLATAWA was built by Delbert E. Hoffman (1870-1915), when he operated his boat shop adjacent to what we now know as the Shaw Island ferry landing in San Juan County. 
      Mr. Will Jakle,* a businessman from Friday Harbor, had come to Hoffman with a design he found in a magazine. The builder tried to convince Jakle that it was not a suitable design for a vessel carrying a lot of weight, as for the intended purpose of hauling fish. The builder knew she needed more freeboard aft and his grandson, Henry, remembers hearing that grandpa quietly snuck on approximately eight more inches of freeboard; the vessel was launched in 1912. 
      The tonnage admeasurement papers include more measurements that you might care to read; her registered length was listed as 50.2' x 15.8' B x 4.8' D; tonnage was 23 G. tons and 15 N. tons burden.
      The year after launching, Captain Jakle was mentioned in the local news for hauling hay and produce from homeport to Pt. Townsend. In 1914, KLATAWA towed Scow IPC-No. 1 with 100 head of young sheep sold by Ed Chevalier of Spieden Island to a farmer in Sydney, B.C. A few years later she was hauling two new Ford cars for Ed Allen who sold them to N. P. Tuck and Walter Arends, both of Roche Harbor. In 1917, Jakle sailed to Seattle to have a new engine installed, a new 60-HP heavy-duty Troyer-Fox. According to the supportive local news reporter, she was promoted as the equal of any tug, of her dimensions, on the Sound.
      We can view an early photo of KLATAWA in the local history book by Beryl Troxell Mason, John Troxell, the Fish Trap Man. That was a play day for the hardworking tug to transport some Lopez folks off to a picnic. Most of her career was spent pulling as a towboat in Puget Sound. 
      At one time she was owned by the well known, 'Doc' Freeman, of Seattle. 
      Later, a tugboat operator, Mr. Ken Thibert of Anacortes, had KLATAWA towing log booms to the Morrison Mill in Bellingham and to a mill in Stanwood. In 1955, KLATAWA tossed Thibert overboard; he almost drowned as a cable tightened while they were towing boomsticks off the beach. That was the last towboat he owned; afterwards, he went into fish boats. 
      KLATAWA was still in registry in 1981.
      You might possibly understand some boats are deserving of special status. When the boatbuilder's great-grandson, Michael, located KLATAWA in the 1990s, he made arrangements for the native-born boat to follow him home to Shaw Island. There were some serious dreams of restoration but all KLATAWA needed was a haul up above the shore, to enjoy the royal view of Hix Bay. A fitting, final, resting place for one of the family.

KLATAWA
Home to Hix Bay, Shaw Island,
San Juan Archipelago, WA.

     * William Jakle (1874-1955) was born at Cattle Point, San Juan Island, son of early pioneer residents. His father was a soldier stationed at American Camp and his mother was one of the first Euro-American women on the island. 
     Well-known mariner and marine artist Steve Mayo of Bellingham, painted a beautiful watercolor of KLATAWA working in her home waters, for the Jakle family. He generously agreed to let the Shaw Island Historical Museum have professional copies made for the museum collection and also for the Henry Hoffman family. Thank you Captain Mayo.