Photos by Erik Long
Lake Union is a gift from the geological gods. In the early 20th century, its location became the economic engine that fueled Seattle’s growth from a remote Washington town into a global powerhouse city.
The breakthrough came in 1917, when the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal connected Lake Union to the Salish Sea and Puget Sound, and to the world beyond. The many sawmills that encircled the lake, fed from the state’s robust forestry industry, provided the raw materials for Seattle to become a shipbuilding hub. Today, The Emerald City has evolved into a tech hub, home to the gleaming jewels Amazon and Microsoft. The lake serves as a playground to a vibrant, multicultural populace, with a lot of interesting boats to see.
I spotted one of those special boats from the co-pilot seat of a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter as I made my way to Roche Harbor in the San Juan Islands. That’s where the 66-foot Paspatoo first came to my attention. I could see the boat’s lines on a nearby quay. She stood out like an elegantly dressed aristocrat amid the beefy trawlers and fishing craft.
And I would have lost track of her after that if it weren’t for Capt. Erik Long. He’s a second-generation shipwright and all-around boat fanatic. We had met a few years back when he was working on a slow-burn refit of his 1973 49-foot Grand Banks Alaskan Legendary. I knew that Long had delivered a wide array of boats and cruised for decades in these waters, so I asked him about Paspatoo.
It turns out I had found the right guy. He had known her previous owner, and had reached out to her current owner to help in her caretaking.
Paspatoo’s story began on Lake Union. The U.S. Army commissioned her at the advent of World War II, and Blanchard Boat Co. built her with a carvel-planked hull composed of locally sourced, 2¼-inch Douglas fir. She launched in 1942 as T-Boat 32. Her duties included transporting troops and machinery, and working as a harbor tug in the Aleutian Islands.
“Ralph Winslow drew her, and following her military career, the vessel was sold into civilian life and bounced around a bit between Lake Union, the San Juan Islands and the Inside Passage to Alaska,” Long says.
Prior to being acquired by her current owner, he says, the boat underwent two significant refits. The first was a keel-up retrofit at Easom Boatworks in Sausalito, Calif., in the early aughts. A full-blown refit at Port Townsend’s Admiral Marine over a several-year period concluded in 2017. “Millions were invested in the full restorations, ripping the boat down to her keel and frames,” Long says.
In the many hours Long has spent on board, the only original wood he could find was the steering helm. Even the keel was completely replaced, he says.
The care that went into her refit is astounding: Long says the lumber is nearly all old-growth and kiln-dried. The shipwrights scored the 1½-inch-thick Burmese teak on her decks from an abandoned project for an Indonesian sultan.
From the Bristol gleam of her teak caprails and window frames to the bronze hardware and perfect patina on the Carlisle & Finch Co. searchlights that flank the flybridge helm, “every area of the boat has a fascinating story,” Long says. The amount of custom work that can be seen just in the 84-year-old vessel’s cockpit is impressive, including a teak hot tub, and a pneumatic system for scuba tanks and air tools.
“When I’m on the outside of that boat, I can’t get anything done,” Long says. “It draws all the attention in Roche Harbor.”
Paspatoo’s last refit included equipment to keep crew comfortable from Alaska to the tropics. New air-conditioning units and diesel-fired heaters were installed, along with a 1,000-gallon-per-day watermaker and Naiad active-fin stabilization. Victron inverters and chargers manage her battery banks, with a 30-kW main genset and a 15-kW unit providing power. A custom Electro-Guard Impressed protection system obviates the need for sacrificial zinc anodes, protecting her from stray current at any marina.
Long says her efficient power train—a 250-hp Detroit Diesel—give the old girl a 9- to 10-knot cruise speed with an approximate 2,300-nautical-mile range.
The boat’s name, he told me, comes from the French passe-partout, meaning a universal document, like a passport or visa, that allows for unrestricted travel.
Those range numbers, combined with the careful retrofit of modern systems for self-sufficiency, make Paspatoo a passport to the world’s seas.
Paspatoo Specifications:
LOA: 66ft. 9in.
Beam: 18ft.
Draft: 6ft. 6in.
Fuel: 1,300 gal.
Water: 359 gal.
Power: 1x 250-hp Detroit Diesel 6V92
This article originally appeared in the September 2026 issue of Passagemaker magazine.
