FV Ocean Queen Crew Pulling the Net

From John Martin, Sr.:  "My father Jim Martin started his  lifelong vision of being a seine boat captain with this boat.  He had lots of friends, many were Slavonian.  They went to False Pass every summer and showed us how to seine.  Dad worked his way up from a trolling boat. Mrs. Walsh was the wife of the Superintendent of Icy Strait Cannery.  Dad had a special connection with them.  Mr. Walsh, the Superintendent bought Dad the Rosario, it was bigger than his previous boat.  They brought in 2 or 3 loads of fish a day, which was a lot.  Dad asked 'Why do we have to use the older, smaller seine boats from Klawock cannery?  Why not brand new vessels?'  The Superintendent and Mrs. Walsh agreed, and they got a bigger boat that brought in 4 times the weight in fish.  It had a brand new diesel.  “Don’t let the cat out of the bag; we’ll build new boats” said Superintendent Walsh.  They called the boats “Queen”, named after Mrs. Walsh.  There was one for Joe White named Mermaid, one for John Martin’s father Jim.  Later they found a 58’ boat in Seattle that had been built as a yacht, the wood was clear cut Douglas fir and had thick planking.  Boats built before WWII had no power block.  The corks had been made of cork; they had to hot wax them every year and they would begin to sink towards the end of the season.  They started using sponge corks which were better.  The Ocean Queen was designed after a halibut vessel in Petersburg."