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144 Sounion and Scrivener DURING OUR THIRD SEASON on Margaret, in 1965, Dick and I talked about dissolving our partnership and getting boats of our own. Not that our friendship was at all bruised from the years of fishing together. I can’t imagine a better partnership, not even the one between John and Mike that impressed me so much a few years later. They’d started as partners fishing one of CWF’s conversions, and then graduated to more impressive old cannery boats. They, too, moved beyond their partnership after a few years, each getting his own boat. But, working together, they’d devised a method of sharing command that still amuses me. It could have worked only for two people who were such good friends, each with a playful sense of humor. Every day at midnight they changed command, John being the captain one day and Mike the next. On their small scale, they’d found a perfect solution to the old problem of how a captain should wield his authority. They realized that in fishing you couldn’t have a debate about whether to set the net here or there, or to run east or west. And each was relieved to let the other guy take responsibility. When I stopped to talk with them on the water, I could never tell who was captain that day. Only sometimes I’d catch a trace of sweet smoke that lingered in the air and seemed to contribute to their good humor. Dick and I didn’t have such a system but managed to share the work and responsibility in as goodnatured a way as I can imagine. It’s just that we both realized that we’d get a lot further by not splitting our earnings fifty-fifty. I looked at several used boats that were for sale in Kenai and finally fixed my attention on one called Kaye Lynn, a thirty-footer that a fisherman from the Columbia River had recently brought to Columbia Wards. Although it wasn’t much larger than Margaret, it seemed to me like a powerful and glamorous vessel, with a big Chrysler V-8. It had twin carburetors and a wet exhaust system that made a wonderful low-pitched rumble. And with its small forward cabin and a chain-driven reel, it promised to be a boat Sounion and Scrivener 145 that I could live on and operate alone. Word got around that it had won the Columbia River fishing boat race, as a bowpicker, before being rebuilt as a sternpicker for the Inlet fishery. Much of the attraction was that the owner, Danny, was a true highliner both in Kenai and on the Columbia River. Again and again that summer I watched him bring in as many fish as the boat would carry. Dick bought my half of Margaret for $1,250 and fished it for another year before selling it and getting his own larger boat. I paid Danny his asking price of $6,500, though that was a lot of money from my point of view. I could swing it with a low-interest loan from the National Marine Fisheries Service. I was slow getting to Kenai the first summer I owned it and found that, because its position on the ways had been blocking other boats, the cannery crew had already launched it. But in launching it, the beach gang hadn’t taken the necessary precautions and it quickly sank in the river. The boat was made of Port Orford cedar, which is notorious for drying out over the winter. The dry planks spread at the seam but swell tight after a few days in the water. Other fishermen knew to spray the planks with water for a few days before launching. But Kaye Lynn went in dry, began to take on water, listed to the unplugged scuppers, and sank. When I got there the inside of the cabin was still a mess from the Kenai silt, but the cannery’s mechanics had cleaned up the engine and changed the oil several times. I was pissed that they’d sunk it before I even had a chance to take it for a spin, but I also knew how those mechanics could keep the old cannery boats going and quickly got over it. Later that week I finished renaming the boat by tacking on new plastic letters, Sounion, and this caught the attention of a man whose boat I’d...

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