On Jan. 8 the Progress left Fred Wahl Marine Construction in Reedsport, Ore. The Progress is the 114' x 30' cod and pollock trawler that had been towed from Dutch Harbor in the Bering Sea to Reedsport in March 2018 after a wave smashed through the wheelhouse, flooding much of the boat.

Instead of repair work to get her back in the water as soon as possible, the Progress was taken out of service for a year and rebuilt. That included lengthening and sponsoning. When the Progress went back in the water, she measured 131' x 41' 6". The first week in February, Fred Wahl Marine Construction’s Heath Greene said the Progress was back fishing in Alaska and had “already brought full loads in. The boat is doing really well.”

Currently undergoing a sponsoning job that should be completed by the middle of March is the 88' x 22' B.J. Thomas, a West Coast crabber and shrimper out of Newport, Ore. But it wasn’t the need to be sponsoned that brought the B.J. Thomas to Fred Wahl.

Other boats in for repairs include the San Diego-based Royal Dawn, which was getting all new shaft work. The Windward, an older tender that requires “extensive steel repairs” to the hull, and a 130' x 30' Alaska crabber, the Alaskan Trojan, which was having its bottom and fish hold blasted and painted.

The last new boat to be completed was the Halcyon, a 58' x 28' combination boat for an Alaska fisherman. The next new 58-footer will probably be the 58' x 29.5' spec boat whose subsections were starting to be assembled in February.