WESTERN FLYER

摘要

I first saw WESTERN FLYER on a drizzly February morning in 2015. She was outside on chocks in Port Townsend, Washington, recently salvaged from the bottom of the Swinomish Channel. Dismasted, barnacled, mud-clad, she was a 77' mess. Silty rust oozed from her fastenings, and oakum hung like dreadlocks from her seams. Large chunks of her windlass and bulwarks were chewed away. The elegant, sweeping lines of two lovely boats nearby, FLYING DAWN and PASPATOO, exaggerated FLYER's ghastly appearance. Yet people were willing to stand in the rain to see her. Most of us, I'm sure, felt the same mix of awe and nausea, like a punch in the gut. People shook their heads, and someone walked off muttering, "She should have been scuttled."