Peter J. Marsh—40 Years of Marine Journalism on the NW Coast
“Liberty Factory—the untold story of Henry Kaiser’s Oregon shipyards”
After 40 years freelancing for regional and national nautical magazines, I finally took the time in 2019-20 to complete my book about the ship-building history of the Portland, Oregon region in WWII. Portland and Vancouver, Washington played an important part in President Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy” and within a year became “Liberty Ship Capitol of the World,” according to local photo-journalist Lawrence Barber (1901-1996), the last marine editor of the Oregonian newspaper. The book is based on the large collection of his images and articles that I was given by his widow Elizabeth Barber. (Liberty Factory is published by Seaforth, a specialist in nautical books. The U.S. distributor is USNI of Annapolis, Maryland.)
This book is the first full account of the amazing accomplishments of the three Kaiser “emergency” shipyards in the region, two in Portland and one in Vancouver, Washington, all built from the ground up in a few months. It has 256 large format pages, illustrated with over 100 black & white prints that I personally selected and scanned from Barber’s collection of original 8 x 10 images. They cover every stage of the construction of the hundreds of Liberty ships and Victory ships built in the St. Johns district, the T2 tankers built on Swan Island, and the 50 escort aircraft carriers built in Vancouver.
The workforce consisted of over 100,000 men and women, most of whom had no prior engineering experience. This required the pioneering of many new ideas and methods in training and revolutionary developments in mechanization and pre-fabrication to enable true mass-production of ships for the first time. This was quickly adopted and adapted to develop the modern modular systems utilized by all successful shipyards. Kaiser also pioneered medical coverage for all his employees, which grew to become now one of the nation’s leading health care providers, and a 24-hour child care service that unfortunately closed in 1945.
The book also covers the activity of the four original shipyards in Portland, which had barely survived the Depression years repairing tugs, barges and ferries. They rapidly expanded to have the capacity to build hundreds of smaller naval vessels up to 200′ long, including subchasers, minesweepers, and landing craft. There are also chapters describing other local manufacturers who converted their plants to supply the 2,500 hp steam engines and anchor winches for the Liberties, and much of the deck gear and interiors needed by the shipyards. (Read some reviews.)
The book is available from USNI and specialized book shops, or I will sign and ship it to anyone in the USA for $59 including postage and packing. It is also available for $50 at the Hanthorn Cannery Museum shop in Astoria, where I volunteer. I will also be giving talks about the book this year (2024) on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
Dec, 6 Fort Vancouver (Washington) National Monument. March 7 Cowlitz County (Washington) Historical Soc. June 2 Clatskanie (Oregon) History Series. June 6 St. Helens (Oregon) Columbia County Historical Society July 11 Vancouver – Clark County (Washington) Historical Society August 6 Columbia River Maritime Museum, Astoria (Oregon) Nov. 21 Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma
My Columbia River Boat-Building Blog
(Articles on new tugs, ferries, fishing vessels, ships and yachts in the Pacific NW)
2022: Columbia River Lightship and Large Buoy Return to Astoria Waterfront
2022: ColRiv–78′ Robert Allan ASD tug pulls record 96 tons
2022: ColRiv–Foiling Survey Catamarans Keep Grain Ships Moving
2022: Astoria Yard Upgrades ex- L. A. Pilot Boat for Grays Harbor
2020: NW Catamaran and Fast Ferry Launches
2019: Kitsap County’s Local Ferry is First Hybrid
2017: ColRiv–Caden Foss 110′ Multi-Purpose Tier 4 Tug for SF Bay
2015/2022: Shipping Sees New Use for Vigor’s Ammonia Tanker Barge
2014: ColRiv–120′ Hyak Tugs Set High Standard for Offshore Towing
I have over 150 earlier articles on file under a number of headings
- New marine technology in power and sail
- Professional Yacht Racing including IMOCA 60 interviews in French
- Recreational boating–personal experience in kayaks, dayboats, mini cruisers
- DIY Design/build/sail–40 years of trials and triumphs on my 6,/19.5′ trimaran
- Solo Voyages– to Alaska twice, Great Lakes, Oregon coast, Columbia/Snake Rivers
- History of navigation in the Pacific NW – from 1580 to 1980
- Use the search bar on the right to find a particular story or topic
Cycling and Adventure Travel Writing on Three Continents
I have been actively involved in cycling journalism since I became manager of the monthly Oregon Cycling newspaper 1989-9. In the 1990’s I made many bike-and-hike ascents from sea level on the west coast volcanoes of the USA. In 2000-2016 I made a half dozen bike and hike trips across Mexico, Guatemala, and Patagonia. Most were on a Bike Friday– the folding bike still built in Eugene, Oregon that I began riding in 1997. In 2011-13 I took three winter tours across France and Spain. When Oregon Cycling closed in 2006, I began writing for the Bike Paper in Seattle, until it too closed at the end of 2015. To see my best bike stories, click on “Cycling” on the list at the right or type “Sea to Summit.” Most recently, I began experimenting with 26″ mountain bikes and rode across the USA on one over three summers 2017-2019 following the standard route from Virginia to the Mississippi, then my own unique unplanned route via Kansas City, Fort Collins, Salt Lake City, Boise, ending at Hood River. (Photo of me and the Bike Friday on the Camino del Norte pilgrimage route on the north coast of Spain in 2012.)
Mule Packer–the “Do-it-Yourself” travel bike built with a hacksaw and a file!
Since 2014, I have built, tested and proved a simple D.I.Y. method to build a demountable travel bike using two durable 26″ wheel mountain bikes from the 1980’s. The result was the “Mule Packer,” a two-part frame that packs into a plywood box that measures 62″ overall to comply with the standard airline suitcase size limit. There’s no catch–you just have to find a source of these standard 1980’s frames, one large for the front half, one smaller for the rear half. They must have horizontal top tubes and equal down tube angles–this is the hard part!
The two halves are connected by two simple sleeve joints that are as strong as the original frames. It flew free to Santiago, Chile with me in its plywood box and I rode it along the wet and windy Carreterra Austral in southern Chile (Patagonia) More recently, I have successfully tested an additional hack by swapping the 26″ fork to a 700c, and improving the ride on any rough surface with a fat 700c front tire, making it a real “69er!” Read more: (Over 2000 views)
Ocean Rowing or Ocean blowing?
Is Ocean Rowing the “Ultimate Sporting Challenge” or an “Exercise in Futility?” I have been pondering the myth and reality of this extreme sport/obsession since 1991. That was when I sat in the front row of the press conference in Astoria for Frenchman Gerard d’Aboville after he crossed the North Pacific from Japan in 134 desperate days. That resulted in a feature story in Northwest Yachting magazine and since then, I have met and written about other intrepid solo adventurers who had completed what I would now describe as “ocean crossings with prevailing winds and oars.” But it took a decade before I had the courage to write a statement like that, knowing it would cause considerable offence. By 2000, I had met the next rower on the NW coast, Mick Bird, who departed from here and rowed to Hawaii. He was very honest about his crossing in the trade winds and I admired his nerve, but not his logic. I began to ponder the explanation and justification for these exploits and their denial of the very basic meteorology on which they all rely. I also met Erden Eruç by accident at the Seattle boat show, and checked in occasionally on his multi-year trip around the world by boat and bike. However, it was the Japanese tsunami of 2011, which provided absolute scientific proof of the power of the west wind and current on the North Pacific to send the tsunami wreckage to the U.S. west coast in 6-9 months. This had clearly transported Gerard d’Aboville most of the way to the Columbia River–a feat that now leaves me completely underwhelmed. Another Frenchman made his own statement by drifting across the Atlantic in barrel! So it appears I am the first and perhaps only public critic of ocean rowing online or in any other medium. Click here for my detailed analysis
A Short Biography–I was born in England in 1947 and lived in Greenwich, SE London for my first 24 years. In 1966, I became involved with the early British multihull movement through pioneers like Derek Kelsall, James Wharram and the Amateur Yacht Research Society. I also studied to become a PE teacher 1966-69 and taught 1969-71. Then I proceeded to sketch a 36′ open-deck catamaran inspired by the first Pacific voyagers. I built it in a single year in 1969-70 and sailed it to the Netherlands with a crew consisting of an Australian and a German woman. We left the boat onshore for the winter and worked in a boatyard in Medemblik until December. I set off for London, and stopped in Den Haag, the Dutch capital, to visit a sailor who had visited the boat. While exploring the city center, I met a young American woman and we spent the rainy afternoon at an exhibition by the famous and enigmatic artist M.C. Escher. We discussed our very separate plans for the coming year and she suggested I would find better prospects in the USA………… I briefly returned to teaching P.E. in London, then sailed the boat back to Dover in the spring, and left it at a cheap moorage in the historic center of Sandwich, Kent. I flew to Chicago in the summer of 1972 and was easily convinced by that experience to completely re-direct my life. I returned to the UK, sold the boat to a another Dutchman, and delivered it back to the Netherlands. I was soon back in the USA, and never looked back. For more stories from my youth in Britain, look at the top of this page. Click here for more on My American Life