Duke was hull number one of Cummings Boat Works, built in Tacoma to an Ed Monk Sr. design and launched on April 5, 1947. Douglas fir planking on steam-bent oak frames, built to fish.
And fish she did: out of Sitka, Alaska, until 1955, then for four decades out of Eureka, California, crossing the Humboldt bar in the kind of water that finds the weak point in every pump, fitting and wire run aboard.
This autumn she begins a full refit. Everything that goes into her has to earn its place: plumbing, electrical, deck hardware, and the power systems that let a boat live away from the dock.
Duke Ocean is built around that work. Her captain has taken his own boats across the Bering Sea and across the Atlantic to South America, and along the BC coast and the west coast of Vancouver Island. The equipment we offer is the equipment we would trust aboard our own boat.
