John Skamser owned the Alpine in the 70s.He fished her from central California to Winter Harbor, BC.
Deckhands included Mark Stone who owned and ran Svea and Gary Thomas who had the Jean Anne.
Gary was run down by a Norwegian freighter in his boat. He stepped off the boat onto a floating hatch cover as she went down. An East German stern trawler saw the collision and launched a skiff down the stern ramp. They zoomed over and picked Gary off the hatch cover. He didn’t even get wet.
Marvin Tolonen built her and fished until selling her to John. He was a master craftsman with a superior eye for design. Not many 40′ boats could blast freeze 10 tons of albacore.
Capt. CaCa wrote: “Charlie: I just remembered another good story about Marvin Tolonen.
After he sold the Alpine to John Skamser, he leased the Vallhalla II for a couple of tuna seasons while he built his first steel boat, the Seawind. Now, Marvin told me that he didn’t know diddly-squat about steel construction, so he took a welding class at Clatsop Community College. Well, about 2/3s of the way through the class, the instructor told Marvin that he could be certified and that his over-head welds were perfect! Marvin answered by taking off his apron and gloves and walked out of the class to start working on the Seawind.
The Seawind is one of the most beautiful and functional trollers that I’ve ever seen. Other than the stateroom at the aft port corner of the wheelhouse, it has completely unobstructed vision from anywhere in the house, including at the raised table in the galley.
A couple of years later, Marvin obliged Tim (of the Dorothy H.) by agreeing to help him build a sistership to the Seawind. Sooo… by the next spring, the new boat was nearly finished. I was in Warrenton to buy some crabpots so I stopped by to take a look. I asked Marvin how everything turned out. Being the consumate perfectionist, he replied, “I just don’t understand it! I can’t figure out why this boat is 4 inches longer than the Seawind!”
~~~Ron
ps: Marvin’s dad’s boatyard was commonly call the Astoria Boat Works.”
Skamser sold the boat to Lynn Martin. She went down with Lynn, Terry Mason and Donie Warnock fishing for box crab off the central Oregon coast.