M/V Blue Fin, Northlake Shipyard homeport on Lake Union, she’s always on the move worldwide. Former Captain Mark of the m/v Blue Fin, is and was absolutely one of the Pacific Northwest top Salty Sea Dogs. When Mark wasn’t out at sea for months at time his home port is Seattle, WA. The MVv Blue Fin is 165 ft. a beam 38 ft, with 60,000 gallon fuel capacity; out 30 days at a shot. While Mark was Captain of this boat he loved every minute of it at sea; after more than a few months on land he gets a little antsy. — Captain Mark Passed Away ‘Summer of 2014,’ a great Pacific Northwest man of the sea.
M/V Blue Fin, Captain Mark passed away, summer of 2014.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Captain Mark’s loved ones! Salty Dog – Readers, Ya’ll love this news post about R/V Blue Fin…. here she is in Captain Marks words!
“Primarily the boat was designed as an oil supply vessel down south built by Bender Ship Yard in 1980 after the oil field went to hell at that point; a lot of fishing companies were buying up oil supply vessels for cheap. At that time the old ‘Blue Fin’ was bought. It had some modifications to it; soon after Western Pioneers, Inner Coastal Cargo Outfit at that time hauled fish and supplies to Alaska. They added a deck converted interior space into freezer holds; it was strictly a freight Boat at that time. Now the ‘Blue Fin’ is owned by, FV North Wind; they converted it into a research vessel, added A-frame, electronics, cranes, cut the big door in the side; making the Blue Fin adaptable to a lot of research applications for current missions for NOAA as a Tsunami, Hurricane, Weather Buoy Boat,” the words of Captain Mark and his ‘Blue Fin’ boat history update.
M/V Blue Fin, Home Port Northlake Shipyard, Seattle WA
When asked about the rout plans to the m/v Blue Fin, Salty Sea Dog Captain Mark starts off with the next trip, “ Generally the rout is pre-planned occasionally they do modify the mission and add buoys, if time permits and or something malfunctions along our route. But its generally pretty planned it starts in Seattle we go up coast of Canada, rounds Gulf of Alaska; will generally stop in Kodiak, Dutch or Adak – we’ve stopped in all 3 in the last three years. We will be servicing all the buoys along the way. Once we depart the Alaska Port we follow the coast over to Russia, The Philippines, on down to Guam, it’s generally our next stop. Then we will usually hit American Samoa after that and service all buoys down there. We have stopped in Tahiti on occasion and the Galapagos on occasion; it sounds like we will stop in this year. Then we will shoot over to Hawaii and handle all buoys around the Hawaiian Islands. Next we will head down off the coast of the South end of Central America, we will then proceed North stopping in to San Diego next heading north to cover buoys off the California, Oregon, Washington Coast. On the last leg we end up back in Seattle, this rout generally takes four to five months,” says Captain Mark, m/v Blue Fin. Now we know why too much ‘shore time’ makes this seasoned Captain antsy!
While underway 24/7 with Captain, Chief Mate and a Second Mate; usually the m/v Blue Fin will run 200 miles off shore; the Tsunami Buoys are approximately 300 to 500 miles apart giving people on land a minimum of 45 minutes to get to higher ground. For example coming into Dutch Harbor two years ago; the m/v Blue Fin had just repaired their Tsunami Bouy; it went off when the boat was half way to Dutch; the town had a Tsunami Bouy which activated the warning; the whole town had time to go up into the hills, getting to higher ground. There never was a Tsunami that actually occurred; yet it was good to see folks had time to get safety thanks to the Technology of these NOAA Tsunami Buoys.
For more information visit:
Center for Excellence in Marine Technology of theNational Data Buoy Center, NOAA
M/V Blue Fin, Hurricane Tsunami Buoy Boat
