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Western Flyer relics go to auction this week

Posted on February 11th, 2025 By: Chapin Day

The sharp bang of an auctioneer’s gavel, due to sound Thursday, Feb. 13, in Berkeley, California, could echo locally.

A Wauna man seems a bit anxious. He’s nursing a years-long emotional tie to the formerly junk-piled maritime items for sale, not to mention a financial stake in the auction outcome.

“I’m on pins and needles,” Michael Hemp told Gig Harbor Now last week.

A Northern California man, the original salvager and owner of the items for the last 49 years, has a lesser emotional tie to the relics. But he maintains hopeful anticipation for a far bigger slice of a potential cash pie.

Auction action happens Thursday

By phone last week, Dennis Fry illustrated his focus on a possible payoff, his jovial manner, and his gift for colorful speech as he answered Gig Harbor Now’s questions about his pre-auction feelings.

“Like my Dad used to say, either we’ll be fartin’ through silk or back to cloth,” he chuckled.

Bottom line? Fry could reel in tens of thousands of dollars if the auction succeeds in selling any or all of the four parts: a steering wheel, two compasses, and a control shifter.

Results of the auction, which anyone can watch unfold live on the internet, also are likely to resound in literary, fishing industry, and ocean science circles.

Michael Hemp of Wauna, left, and Dennis Fry with auction items during a rare and brief public display last month at an open house at Doc Ricketts’ lab on Cannery Row. Photo courtesy Devin Armstrong

Why?

Because the objects Fry, then a teenager, rescued from a scrap heap in Alaska are original parts of the “Western Flyer,” perhaps the most famous fishing boat in the world.

Western Flyer

The 76-foot craft, built in Tacoma in 1937, earned the title after author John Steinbeck and his pal, marine biologist Ed “Doc” Ricketts, wrote a book about their 1940, six-week voyage aboard her from Monterey, California, into the “Sea of Cortez,” AKA the Gulf of California.

Last Fall, a Gig Harbor Now story recounted the convoluted history of the Western Flyer, its long-unknown original parts, and an improbable cast of characters.

That cast emerged over the years, here in the Northwest and elsewhere, to save the twice-sunken hulk, restore it, and return it to a useful life in its Monterey homeport. There, a nonprofit operates it as a research and educational vessel.

In our Oct. 2 story, Gig Harbor Now noted that Hemp, acting as an agent for Fry, was still searching for a suitable auction house to arrange the parts sale on behalf of Fry.

Soon thereafter, Hemp settled on the Berkeley firm PBA Galleries, Auctioneers and Appraisers. The firm bundled the Fry items with a collection of mostly Steinbeck-related documents, letters, photos, and books owned by Ed Rickets Jr., son of the famed biologist.

The restored Western Flyer. Photo courtesy of the Western Flyer Foundation

Spare parts, with historical significance

At 11 a.m. Thursday, the firm will begin auctioning 63 items, or lots, as they say in the trade. The lots range from starting bids of $150 for a photo to $20,000 for the Western Flyer’s wheel.

Fry’s four items, lots 27 through 30, are among the priciest in the firm’s informative online catalog, which can be viewed on PBA’s website.

The catalog’s estimated selling price for the wheel is double to triple its $20,000 opening bid. For the two compasses — one from the boat’s cabin and one from its flybridge — the starting bids are $12,000 each and the estimated sale prices are $20,000 to $30,000. The control shifter starts at $3,000, with $6,000 to $8,000 listed as the estimated price.

Fry, while hoping for top dollar, also looks forward to a possible end to the ongoing parts saga.

“It’s been a long, drawn-out affair,” he told Gig Harbor Now, adding later, “The sentimental value is long gone for me.”

In fact, Fry says, until about 10 years ago he had no notion that the items he salvaged could have historic value and generate so much interest.

In 1976, he plucked them from debris left after his Alaska-based fisherman father purchased and updated a fishing boat named “Gemini.”

Hidden treasure

“Gemini” was “Western Flyer,” renamed several years earlier by a prior owner, a fact that escaped Dennis’ attention. He says he saved the items just because he liked them.

He liked them well enough to bring them along in 1990 when he gave up fishing, moved to California’s Shasta County, and became a trucker.

Over the ensuing years, he recalls mulling other fates for his little collection, particularly for the large metal pieces. Options included putting them out as garden ornaments, melting them down to create a yard water feature, or simply re-junking them.

But in 2015, Hemp — a former resident of the Monterey Peninsula and published historian and promoter of Monterey’s Cannery Row — tracked down Fry and advised him of the relics’ likely significance and possible value. Dennis’ earlier thoughts vanished.

“I was glad I kept them,” he told Gig Harbor Now.

Chris Dunlap is another person glad Fry kept them.

A qualified salesman

Dunlap’s job title at the PBA Galleries is “Cataloguer.” He takes credit for offering the two Steinbeck/Ricketts collections together. On Thursday, he will wield the gavel on-line. No bidders will be present in the gallery and no in-person bids will be considered.

The 57-year-old Dunlap seems exceptionally well-qualified and well-steeped in Steinbeck and Ricketts facts and lore.

He was born in Salinas, Steinbeck’s hometown. He went to one or more of the local schools Steinbeck attended. Dunlap’s father was an oceanographer and professor at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. Dunlap describes himself as an avid follower during the years-long efforts to locate and revive “ Western Flyer.” One of Dunlap’s prior jobs included working for a publishing firm that produced a costly 2020 special edition of “Sea of Cortez,” replete with a cover containing fibers of wood saved during Flyer’s rebirth.

By phone, Dunlap told Gig Harbor Now that he, along with the sellers and other colleagues, decided to sell the Fry items individually rather than as a collection.

Though Fry and Hemp have previously expressed hope that the four items would be kept together and available for public display, the decision to sell them one at a time may quash those dreams.

John Steinbeck and the Flyer’s skipper during the 1940 voyage. Photo courtesy the Steinbeck Study Center at San Jose State University.

Big plans for auction proceeds

However, as Dunlap explained it, the Lot by Lot process could help spur higher prices and make it possible for bidders unable to afford everything to acquire at least one or more of the lower priced items.

One other person interested in the final sales prices is Vonnie Fry, Dennis’ wife.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” she said cheerily during a phone call with Gig Harbor Now, jokingly adding a trace of spousal concern, “He’s already spent the money.”

When Gig Harbor Now told Dennis what she had said, he admitted to wanting to buy some heavy-duty gear to search for treasure in old gold mining tailings piled on 40 acres of land he holds mining rights to.

He says he figures that the Gold Rush 49ers and their successors must have missed some gold that has by now filtered down through the tailing’s rock, soil, and sand for him to find.

Still hopeful that his “Western Flyer” parts sell, he said, “I want to spend the next 10 years digging in the dirt.”

In short, time to pull up his britches, of whatever fabric, and get to work.

Check PBA’s website for full auction details and rules. Bidders must register before the event. Online spectators can watch for free without signing in. Items are offered in order by lot number.

The back cover of the PBA Gallery’s auction catalog.