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This article appeared in the Verbatim section of the October 23, 2024 issue of the Sequim Gazette:

For Sequim’s Bob Caldwell, a dream project took 60-plus years to come to reality after a memorable voyage.

In 1957, Caldwell completed a 70-day tuna fishing trip on the M. V. Southern Pacific.  He thought to himself afterward, ‘Someday I want to build a scale model of that boat.’

“College, marriage and a career intervened and although thoughts of that commitment popped up occasionally over the years, it was 1990 before I had a suitable shop and sufficient time to think seriously about beginning construction.

Correspondence with the builders of the original ship (J. M. Martinac Shipbuilding of Tacoma), attempts to contact the skipper and a search of the trade magazine ‘Pacific Fisherman’ for the years during which the ship was active in the tuna trade consumed half a year and it was early 1994 before the nearly completed plank-on-frame model was ready for final touches.

Life intervened again at that point with retirement and a move to Sequim that required the uncompleted model be stored in a moving box to protect it.

The box was seldom opened during the next 30 years (as) there was just too much that needed to be done in Sequim to allow time to work on the model.

A house needed to be built, a property to be developed, farmland needed to be saved (Friends of the Field), a community theater (Olympic Theatre Arts) needed to be built, gardens planted and clams and crabs needed harvesting.

Finally, in 2024 the moving box was unpacked, finishing touches on the model were planned and executed and a Plexiglas display case constructed.

At last, 67 years after its conception, the 46-inch long model is ready to be displayed. It is an accurate and detailed 1/32 scale model of the original 123 ft. long tuna clipper.

It belongs to a class of vessels known as ‘bait boats’ — so named because to fish for tuna they were first required to net a considerable quantity of small bait fish such as herring and anchoveta, keep them live in wells, and then use them to stir up schools of tuna which were individually caught on bamboo poles and hoisted on board.

On my 1957 trip, the ship brought home about 220 tons of frozen tuna harvested from Mexican waters of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean and landed at Starkist Foods in San Pedro, Calif.

At the time, I was working for the California Department of Fish and Game as a seasonal aide.

Me and another DFG employee were tasked with fishing along with the Southern Pacific’s regular crew but recording data on a small sample of the caught, but still lively tuna, inserting plastic ‘spaghetti’ tags in the fish and then releasing the tagged fish for hopeful later recovery, thereby learning more about the travels and growth rates of the sampled schools.

I remember the thrill of catching and the pleasure of being an ‘almost’ member of the crew, but I regret no longer remembering how many tuna we tagged nor how many tags were ever recovered. Even so, the trip stands out as one of the high points in my active life. Thank you Lord!”

Caldwell adds that he and his wife Elaine have spent more than 30 years in Sequim, and along with finishing the boat, they raised two daughters and initiated work on four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

The Caldwell’s were able to guide their two mothers through their superior years and they’ve hosted numerous visits from friends and relatives. The couple said they were honored to both be Sequim Citizens of the Year in 2006.

“We’ve loved every minute,” they said.