By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
As the 44-foot troller F/V Sea Lark floated free of the Travelift slings at the Halibut Point Marine boatyard this afternoon, it marked the end of marine haulout services in Sitka.
The owners of the Halibut Point Road haulout and boat yard have shut down the facility to make room for the passenger terminal and deep water dock they have built to service Sitka’s booming cruise ship support business.
They gave Sitka more than two years of advance notice of their plans, but the end came without any new haulout available for the hundreds of boats, large and small, that are the heart of Sitka’s multi-million dollar fishing industry.
Chris McGraw, whose family has owned and operated the haulout since 2005, said the F/V Sea Lark, an Alaska-built troll boat, would be the last boat out.
Sitka shipwright Mike Nurco works on the F/V Sea Lark at the Halibut Point Marine Haulout recently. The 44-foot Sea Lark is the last boat in the fishing fleet to be hauled out at the facility before the area is converted to support the new cruise passenger terminal. Even though the city was given notice of the plan to close the haulout more than a year ago,
a new haulout facility is yet to be built.
(Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
“I hate to be the last guy but I’m happy they could fit me into the schedule,” said Ricco Mulligan, who owns the Sea Lark, which had been out of the water since April 2.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he added. “A haulout is not just for fishermen, it’s for sailboats, it’s for everyone. This is going to put a damper on people who have to get boatwork done.”
Despite the advance notice and the availability of waterfront land for a replacement, the shutdown came with no immediate solution in sight to fill the need for a new haulout.
The absence leaves owners of all kinds of boats with no alternative but to take them to towns that have the facilities for their boatyard work.
A haulout is a top funding priority for the Assembly, with city staff, the Gary Paxton Industrial Park board, and private parties pursuing options and ideas for funding and building a new haulout and boatyard.
“The GPIP board understands how important this is to the community. It’s been a top goal,” said Garry White, director of the industrial park.
The board issued a Request for Proposals for private sector development of a haulout in 2009, and has made other attempts as well, with the help of city staff.
The most recent response was submitted by coalition of residents who organized as Sitka Community Boatyard LLC. Its proposal was approved by the GPIP board and the Assembly last summer, but it remains stalled for lack of funding.
“The problem is we do not have the available capital – the city hasn’t found the capital to build it after several attempts,” White summarized. “The community has been unwilling to give up ownership control – private industry has been unwilling to put capital in without ownership of the property.”
The item has been on the city’s and Assembly’s radar for some time and is a point of focus in its current lobbying efforts at the federal level.
City Administrator John Leach said the haulout is part of Sitka’s “Working Waterfront” legislative priority, which includes funding for an unrelated project, repair of a failing seawall at a city-owned cold storage facility called the marine services center.
Leach noted that the city has just applied a third time for a RAISE grant, to “assist in achieving our working waterfront goals.”
“In the meantime,” he said, “a local group known as the Sitka Community Boatyard was awarded a lease for GPIP properties in July 2021 to develop and operate a marine haulout at the park. The draft lease was presented to the members in October 2021 for execution, and the city is excited for them to begin with the work they proposed to the Assembly as a solution to the community desire for a haulout in Sitka.”
White said a meeting is set for Monday with Sitka Community Boatyard LLC representatives, GPIP chair Scott Wagner and Leach.
The haulouts nearest to Sitka are in Wrangell and Hoonah, although some boat owners get work done in Puget Sound as well.
Chris McGraw, who manages the family-owned waterfront property at 4513 Halibut Point Road, said the family purchased the property, which was already an operating haulout, with the intent of continuing that business. But since then they invested in the creation of Sitka’s first floating deep water dock, to service the cruise ship industry.
McGraw told the Sentinel today that he gave notice to the city in 2019 that he planned to close the haulout and the associated boatyard, which could accommodate up to 25 vessels. The pandemic and cancellation of the cruise season for 2020 and half of 2021 extended the time the haulout was open.
McGraw made an offer to the city to build a haulout at another location, and provide a 100-ton Travel lift and washdown pad, in exchange for a 17-acre parcel of city land at 4951 HPR. The proposal did not meet the city charter since land sales proceeds must go into the Permanent Fund, and since then the land has been leased for development of a cruise ship visitor attraction.
McGraw said he has kept the boatyard open to the public and operating as long as he could. But now with the approach of the cruise season and arrival of as many as 455,000 cruise passengers, the property is needed for parking and his company will be busy with tourism projects.
The Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal has space for two large cruise ships. The uplands in full operation will include a mall with gift shops, a restaurant, and a parking lot for shuttles. McGraw is also a partner in the adventure park that is being built on the 17-acre property farther out Halibut Point Road.
Fisherman Jeff Farvour, who has been serving as an adviser on the Sitka Boatyard project, said that in a way the current situation could have been predicted.
“We’ve known about this since 2014, and it’s a textbook case of losing working waterfront and year-round jobs to large-scale tourism,” he said. “We’re committed to a boatyard for Sitka.”
Linda Behnken, one of the fishermen working on the Sitka Community Boatyard project, commented by text today:
“We recognize Sitka needs a boatyard and we will not stop working toward that goal until we are successful. Commercial fishing supports over 600 small businesses in Sitka and provides high-paying year-round jobs. No other industry is as important to the community.”
