The Tuna Boat by Frank Szafranski

The Tuna Boat

By Frank Szafranski

This story took place 51 years ago.  It was an important part of my life, especially my working life.  I attempted to capture the entire scene as it still lives in my memory.  Fortunately pictures on the internet helped move things along.  This is part of a much larger story, but for brevity's sake I'm keeping this to these two chapters.  There are other stories which branch off from this, the most prominent being working with family (ugh!).  I have changed the last names of the characters to protect those who may still be alive.  Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 1

I drove my 1970 Chevy Impala toward Campbell Shipyard to report for work.  The northbound traffic on Harbor Drive coming out of Barrio Logan, where the factory was located, was light.  Clark Anthony was on KFMB radio playing “Best of My Love” by the Eagles. The easy pace of that song was perfect for me because my stomach was in knots.  I was briefed before I headed toward the shipyard but I didn’t know what to expect.  This song soothed my nerves.

Campbell Shipyard was located on Harbor Drive where the San Diego Convention Center now stands.  A twelve-acre site, Campbell Shipyard consisted of a couple of two-story buildings on the north side, a series of single-story buildings on the Harbor Drive side, all painted in a drab gray, surrounded by gray cinder block walls, atop which was mounted razor wire to keep the yard secure, and a big sign, probably two, which said “Campbell Industries.”  In the distance I could see the bow of two tuna boats jutting into the sky.  They were hauled out on what we call railways, or “ways.”  The ways stretched from the middle of the yard, down into the water so the boats could be launched when work was completed.  It was quite a sight, these 150 ft.  masters of the sea, sitting out of the water. They towered over everything else.  The rusted color of one indicated that it was under construction.  The other, painted in a bright, shiny white with the name “Jeanine” painted on the bow, was nearly complete and ready to be launched. 

In addition to railways, the yard had three “floating drydocks” which were not visible from the street.  These drydocks could each hold a two-thousand-ton ship.  The sides of the floating drydock, some thirty feet high, called “wingwalls,” would fill with water to sink the drydock, allowing a ship to slowly maneuver into the dock. Once the vessel was in position, blocks on the base of the dock were moved into place by divers, and water was pumped out of the wingwalls, raising the ship out of the bay for repair work.  Most of the work at Campbell’s took place in these massive movers of steel creations, but much also happened in weld shops, sandblast booths, paint shops, and wood shops.  But not today. 

Today the yard was eerily quiet.  The usual shipyard sounds—the roar of cranes and forklifts, the high-pitched safety beeps of equipment moving around the yard, the distant sound of sandblasting and painting, the arcing sound made by welders, trucks moving steel, sand, and equipment—all background noise to an industry that was humming—were not there. Today was the day I dreaded—the first day of the strike. 

Hundreds of men and a handful of women, all employees of Campbell, were either pacing or standing in front of the main entrance at which stood a small guard shack with a gate.  All sorts of signs were carried by the workers—mostly “Campbell unfair” or “Boycott Campbell’s”—in a relatively peaceful protest. Contrast this to the boisterous protests on university campuses where students protested the Vietnam war.  But it was a strike.  And no one dared cross the picket line.

I had been in the shipyard many times in my training as an apprentice for my uncle’s paint company, but now I was on my own.  My boss, Frank Magellan, taught me well.  He taught me both the sales and technical sides of the paint business.   Sales brought in the revenue, and technical representation supported the product in the field.  Now it was time to put both skillsets to the test. 

I was recruited by my uncle to go to work for his company, Pro-Line Paints, in San Diego, when I was a year or two out of high school.  I didn’t know the first thing about paint. Nor did I know anything about the environment in which I’d be working.  I was just a kid, raised in a middle-class suburban neighborhood, sheltered from the world and its hard, crusty, industrialized edges.  I didn’t yet know what I wanted to do with my life--but my uncle did.

I’ll never forget the day I met my uncle, Anthony Machado, for lunch to discuss his business.  He was a good-looking man of Portuguese descent (90% of the fishing fleet personnel were Portuguese).  Anthony had jet black hair combed back which created a big wave in the front.  His friendly smile made this meeting easy.  In his soft-spoken way (which I would learn later was something of an act) and his piercing eyes, he started the conversation:

“Frankie (that’s what all the family called me), it’s good to see you.  This is Frank Magellan, my sales manager.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said in my 19-year-old, timid voice.

Frank, approximately 35 years old, and also Portuguese, had black hair as well, but styled in what we would have called an “Afro.”  Frank was a well-dressed man, mostly polyester, but nicely done. He looked like he just came from a disco. This was his usual style whether he was in a shipyard or on a tuna boat.  Frank was very friendly and he had a gravelly voice for someone his age—either from smoking too much or yelling too much while working on the tuna boats. 

“Tell me what you’ve been up to,” my uncle said.

I was pretty shy back then, so I gave him the best rundown I could. Not much to tell at 19. So, my uncle continued:

“Frankie, I have a little paint company down near the Coronado bridge, and we supply coatings to the tuna fleet here in San Diego.  This might be a good opportunity for you.”

My uncle went on to describe his company and the work they did.  I didn’t know anything about paint, and I sure didn’t know about tuna boats, let alone that there were any in San Diego. But I was interested, because making $2.50 an hour at “The Handyman” while paying my way through San Diego State, wasn’t getting me anywhere.  Besides, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and this seemed like a great opportunity.  I accepted my uncle’s offer and went to work for him almost immediately.  I didn’t realize that this was the start of a life-long career.

My first day on the job, Frank and Mitch (my uncle liked to be called Mitch) gave me a tour of the factory, and the warehouses on site.  I stopped by the office to say hello to my three aunts and my grandmother, all of whom worked there.  That lightened the mood of my first day.  I got to thinking that things might not be too bad here working with family (until a few years later).  Frank and Mitch described to me how paint was made, its various functions, and what the job entailed.  Frank told me a little about the job: we would take orders from tuna boats as they sat in port preparing for their next trip, and we would supervise the surface preparation and application of our coatings when they were applied to our customers’ ships.  The latter, it turns out, was to protect ourselves from the catastrophic results of poor workmanship.

Then my uncle said, “Frank, why don’t you take Frankie down to the waterfront.”  This was funny because everyone in the office and on the waterfront called Frank Machado “Frankie,” so everyone had to make sure they knew which Frankie they were talking about.

So, Frank Magellan took me down to the waterfront in his Kelly-Green Porsche 911T.  We raced up Interstate 5 North, which gave Frank ample time to show off the car and his driving skills.  And it gave us some time to get acquainted. We took the Hawthorne St. exit, and as we drove down toward Harbor Dr., a whole new world appeared.  The bright blue midday sky contrasted slightly with the dark blue water of San Diego Bay, bisected by a strip of land in the distance called Point Loma with the Coast Guard air station to the right.  The “finger piers” ahead of us were clogged with tuna boats—some blue, but mostly white--but boats everywhere.  They were docked two abreast all along the embarcadero--their white hulls bobbing like giant gulls on the water, their masts rocking to and fro like so many upside-down pendulums.

“These are our customers,” Frank said as we approached the embarcadero. “These are the ships that catch the tuna that you, and everyone else in the world, consumes. Our paints beautify them and protect them.” 

“We sell paint to all these guys?” I asked.

“Yup.  Most of them.”

Frank parked his car on the embarcadero. He acted like he owned the place.  And in some ways, he did.  He knew everyone on the waterfront. And they knew him.  The embarcadero ran from Grape St. to the Star of India—not quite a mile.  Parallel to the embarcadero was a concrete apron along which some of the boats tied up.  There the crew members stretched out their nets for repair.  The waterfront had a pungent odor of fish, seawater, and diesel fuel.  Trucks lumbered along the bumpy finger piers to load supplies onto the boats while cranes lifted the heavier supplies.  The noise of the equipment in motion, voices of fishermen talking to each other (and sometimes tourists), deck bosses on the vessels barking out orders to others--these were the sights and sounds of the “working waterfront” that the Port of San Diego promotes so proudly today. I immediately fell in love with the waterfront, wondering what it would be like to be a fisherman as my grandfather was in Massachusetts so many years ago.

We walked down a pier to visit one of the boats.  Frank briefly described the fishing process—

“Fishing is a dangerous but lucrative business,” he said.  “These guys work their asses off and get paid by how much fish they catch.  If they don’t catch anything, they don’t get paid.”

“I guess they have to hustle,” I said.  “How do they catch the tuna?”

“See that white boat sitting on the ramp on the aft part of the tuna boat? That’s called a net skiff.  It slides down the ramp and pulls the net out so the mother ship can circle the school of fish and bring it in close for loading.  See the yellow speed boats on the side?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to visualize the process.

“Those boats are driven by crew members to corral the tuna and move them toward the net.”

“Like a cowboy herding cattle on the water,” I said, again visualizing the process. I didn’t quite know what to say.  I’m terrified just driving home on Highway 94, let alone being on the open ocean on that tiny little boat!

“Uh, sure,” he said, wondering what kind of an idiot he hired.  “Then the cable at the bottom of the net gets tightened and hauled in by a winch.   The tuna are loaded into wells and frozen on board, then offloaded at the cannery when they return home. The average tuna boat holds twelve to fifteen hundred tons of tuna.”

Frank went on—"These boats cost millions to build.  The owners need to protect their investment.  Paint helps with that.  There’s a lot of down time at sea, so the deck hands and engine room workers work to maintain the vessel by chipping away at the rust, priming, and painting to make the boat look good.  But paint also protects the ship from corrosion which can damage the ship—even sink it.”

We walked down one of the piers.  The vessels were tall, white towers above us, their masts higher still, all held fast by thick ropes at the bow and stern.  Most had gangways with rails dropping from midship down to the pier.

“Let’s go aboard one of these,” Frank said.   “I’ll introduce you around.”

Frank led the way.  The gangway reached from the pier up over the rail of the ship at about a 35-degree angle (sometimes, during low tide, it would be the opposite).  Aromatic odors wafted out of the galley of the ship we were about to board. It was lunch time (tuna boat cooks were some of the best).  We stood at the base of the gangway.  Then someone waved to Frank and yelled “Hey Frankie! Come on aboard!”  We were half way up the gangway when the dogs, barking and baring their teeth, came running down toward us…..

CHAPTER 2

I was nervous.  Shipyard workers are a rough crowd, hardened by the work they do. Stories of crossing the picket line are legend.  I was hoping no incidents would happen here. But I had a plan.

I was wearing jeans, boots, a long sleeve plaid shirt and a ball cap that day. Normally I would dress up, trying to emulate Frank Magellan, my mentor.  It felt good to dress down, but it worried me that I might tip my hand in this attire.  I grabbed my bag from the back seat, swallowed hard, and said a quick prayer as I walked toward the guard gate.  “Best of my Love” was still in my head.  I thought back to my first day on the job:

The dogs were running toward me.  Before I had a chance to run away, a loud whistle came from the mouth of the deck boss and the dogs turned around, returning to their master.  Some of the deckhands laughed at my reaction as I instinctively turned to run.  Frank grabbed me by the arm, assuring me that it was ok.  We boarded the vessel.  Frank introduced me as the new guy to the deck boss and the captain.  After getting a tour of the boat, we enjoyed a delicious lunch of linguicia (Portuguese Sausage), salad, soup, and bread (the cooks on these boats were the best!). We returned to Frank’s Porsche and drove south on Harbor Drive.

To wrap up my first day, Frank took me into two shipyards to show me paint jobs in progress.  He introduced me to important customers in the yards, and walked me down into one of the drydocks to describe work underway.  As time went on, Frank showed me how to safely climb scaffolding and work with the painters and sandblasters to make sure they were applying our coatings correctly.  This part of the job was called “tech-repping”—giving technical support to the products. It was a difficult job for a 19-year-old to tell a forty-something experienced worker how to do things such as “put the paint on heavier” or “sandblast this spot again.”  But I got it. 

Fast forward a year--I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I went to every tuna boat on the waterfront to sell paint—watching for dogs, of course!  And I was a regular in the two major shipyards which hauled out these boats for repair, doing my “tech-rep” work when needed.  It was hard for me to communicate with these guys.  Their world was different than mine.  I was still quiet and shy.  These guys were bold and aggressive. But I adapted and learned. 

Then one day, the Apollo came into town.  She was three hundred feet long--twice as long as most of the purse seiners in San Diego—and ugly.  Her lines were nothing like those of the newer seiners being built by Campbell Shipyard in San Diego, or by JM Martinac in Tacoma, Washington.  Her owner/operator was a man named Manuel Cisneros.

I remember Manuel coming into the Pro-Line offices.  He met with Frank and my uncle about the project.

“I want this thing painted and I want it painted right,” Manuel said to them. “I don’t want any goddam paint peeling off this ship and I don’t want any excuses. It needs to be done right, understand?”

They dutifully shook their heads.  At one point they thought it was a good idea to bring me into the meeting.

“Manuel,” my uncle said, “meet Frankie Szafranski.  He’s been spending lots of time in the shipyards with projects like yours.”

Frank Magellan chimed in, “Frankie can handle it.  He’s done some great work here.”

“Nice to meet you, Manuel.  Tell me about your project.”

We talked about the project at length and then Manuel left the boat to return to the office.

Manuel Cisneros--“the Mad Spaniard”--the name given to him by those who knew him.  Manuel was famous for chastising workers on his own boat and workers at the shipyard.  He once kicked a couple of welders off his boat when it was in a shipyard because he didn’t like the work they did.  Even after he retired, his temper followed him to his grandson’s little league games where he berated players because he didn’t like the way they played.  Wish I had known that BEFORE this job!

Frank and my uncle had written a paint specification for the vessel, outlining surface preparation, number of coats and film thicknesses for the top and bottom of the boat.  We discussed when the vessel would haul out at Campbell Shipyard and how long it should take.  That’s when the strike broke out at Campbell’s and San Diego Marine..

Manuel was working on the boat and caught wind of the strike before it happened.  He came fuming into Frank Magellan’s office.

“What’s with these mother fuckers going on strike,” Manual yelled.  “Don’t they know there’s work to do around here?  This is costing me money! What the hell’s with these shipyard owners letting this happen?  Well, I’ll tell you something right now, they are not going to slow down the work on my boat!  I’ll show those assholes.”

Frank Magellan, ever so smooth, says “well Manuel, what are you going to do?  All the workers are out on strike. You can’t cross the picket line and bring workers in.”

“The hell I can’t!” he said.  “I have my own goddam crew and they’re sittin’ on their asses right now and I’m gonna put ‘em to work.”

“Well, the yard won’t haul out the boat, Manuel” Frank said.

“I don’t give a shit.  I have plenty of work to do topside and I want my crew to do the work.  You have Frankie come down and show my men how to put these paints on.”

So, Frank yells out to me “Frankie, come in here, please!”

I’d heard every word in that office as everyone was talking loudly.  I swallowed hard and came into Frank’s office.

“Frankie,”  Frank Magellan starts out, “We have a problem on the Apollo and I need you to help us with it.  I need you to help Manuel’s crew get the deck area of the Apollo painted.”

“Frankie,” Manuel starts out.  “I’m depending on you to teach my people.  They need to know how to put these paints on. I need to make sure they get that entire deck area done. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

Manuel continues, “Frankie, these guys are hard workers. They know their way around the boat.  You just need to teach them how to mix the paints and apply them to the surfaces.”

“Sounds easy enough.  Have any of them painted before?” I asked.

“Sure. They paint on the boat all the time when they’re out at sea.”

“What about an airless?  Do they know how to do that?”

“My guys can do anything,” said Manuel.

“OK,” I said.  I’ll be there.

Manuel left the office and headed back to the Apollo.  Frank asks me to stay in his office.  Uh oh.

“Frankie, Manuel is a tough one to deal with, but I know you can handle it.  Just take the guys through the spec and help them get some areas of the boat painted.  Start with the bulwarks on the main deck and see how it goes. This strike won’t last long.”

Great. There were only a few problems with that.  Where do I get the equipment? How do I teach a bunch of Spanish deckhands how to mix and apply paint when I only spoke remedial Spanish, and oh yeah, how do I cross the picket line without getting beat up?

I’m not sure how we worked all those questions out, but I remember one thing Frank told me: “When you cross the picket line, hold up your Pro-Line card and tell them you had to see one of the boats inside.  Don’t say which one, don’t say you’re working, just that you had to see the captain.”

As I approached the yard on that first day of the strike, people started to yell at me.  A couple of guys yelled “hey scab!”  I shuttered.  I was afraid of them, and I knew they were protesting for more money.  I was sympathetic to their cause, but I sure as hell didn’t like being called a scab.

I approached the guard gate.  The guard said “What are you doing here, kid?”

“I work for Pro-Line,” I said.  “I need to see the captain of the Apollo.”  I swallowed hard because I had violated Frank’s admonition. Time stood still.

“Are you working?” someone yelled.  I was worried that someone would recognize me, knowing I didn’t normally dress this way.

“Nope,” I yelled back in a shaky voice, “Just need to see the captain of the Apollo.”

The guard hesitated, but he let me into the yard through the guard-shack.  The workers jeered at me as I entered, but they stopped hassling me as I went into the yard.  As I walked down the empty streets of Campbell Shipyard, I was struck by the silence.  Not a sound. Tuna boats sat on the ways with no work being done, an empty drydock on my left crying for an occupant—the yard was a ghost town.  The strike had taken its toll.  I walked toward the northern end of the yard, and there, at the water’s edge, sat the Apollo.  Stripped of its net skiff and net from the aft deck, she looked strangely empty—except for the crew members waiting for me. 

I don’t remember any details about how we prepared the surface.  Maybe the area was sandblasted before we started by some scab, or maybe they did it themselves, but I just remember things being ready for me when I got there.  I brought the paint specification with me but it was somewhat useless as it wasn’t in Spanish.

I started my work by directing the crew the best I could.  Manuel proceeded to tell me how he wanted things and I tried to accommodate him, but I reminded him we needed to stick to the spec.  He didn’t like that.  He wanted the job done as quickly as possible.

Manuel was a tough taskmaster.  He yelled at his people all the time and then he’d yell at me.  I didn’t do anything wrong, but he yelled anyway.  This went on for days.  Tension was thick.

“When will this strike end?” I kept asking myself.

Two days go by. Then six. Then eight. 

Day Ten—I go to Frank’s office in protest.  “Frank, you gotta take me off the Apollo.”

“Why, what’s happening?  Manuel thinks you’re doing a great job.”

“Well, that’s the problem,” I said.  “Manuel…he’s so hard to deal with.  He’s insulting, he yells all the time. He won’t let up on me.”

Frank said, “Let me talk to him.  Maybe I can put you on another project and have someone else take over.”

I felt this great sense of relief-- until Frank called me into his office the next day. 

“I talked to Manuel,” he said.  “I told him I wanted you on another project.  And Manuel told me ‘If you take Frankie off this job then you might as well take your goddam paint with you.’  What can I do, Frankie? I need you to stay on the job.”

“OK,” I said, reluctantly. “I’ll do it.”

I wasn’t very happy.  It seemed like there was no end in sight.  But I carried on.

One day, in order to show the workers what I wanted done, I ended up painting part of the skiff ramp.  This is the aft part of the ship where the net skiff is stored.  The skiff sits at a 45 degree angle.  When the boat makes a set on a school of tuna, the net skiff slides off the ramp into the water.  That’s the area I was working, except no net skiff.  No problem, I thought.  I can do this. The pneumatic airless pump stood on the aft deck, powered by an air-line from the yard’s air supply.  Attached to the pump was 100 feet of hose, supplying paint to the gun.  I turned the valve to start the piston-driven pump.  It made its familiar but hesitant sound—“chh chunk, chh chunk” as it started up;  then it hit a more methodic rhythm as I started working.  I stepped down onto the ramp and started laying down the first coat of primer.  “Ch, Ch, Ch” went the pump every time I sprayed.   I worked my way down the ramp, spraying a coat of paint, the water looming below me.  I remember thinking to myself, “if those guys can chase porpoise on the water with those little boats, I can surely paint this part of the boat while we’re in the water.” I worked my way back up the ramp, spraying as I went, repeating this pattern.  I had completed about 50% of the task when I inadvertently stepped on the wet paint, slipped, fell, and slid rapidly toward the end of the ramp and the water ten or more feet below. 

I had nothing to grab to stop my slide, so I instinctively squeezed the handle of the paint gun in my hand and immediately paint shot twenty feet into the air!  All the workers on the deck laughing hysterically at my misfortune.  I managed to roll to the dry part of the ramp to stop the slide, then climbed back up the ramp, visibly shaken.  Everyone gathered around to check on me and share in the moment.  Thankfully the boat was in the water, not in drydock.  I tried not to think about what could have happened.

My work with the crew of the Apollo continued until the strike was over.  Then the Apollo hauled out to get the bottom sandblasted and painted. At that point, someone else from our company took over tech-repping the job.  I learned a lot by working on the Apollo during that time.  I learned how to teach, how to communicate (in my worst Spanish), how do demonstrate, and more importantly, get the job done. The experience I gained from my work on the Apollo was priceless.  I went on to represent my company on other projects.   I worked for Frank and my uncle for ten years, starting a yacht division there.  But I’ll never forget the Apollo and the lessons I’d learned.