Seattle’s Pacific Fishermen, Inc. has formed PFI Marine Electric through PFI Electric, LLC as wholly owned subsidiaries to offer marine electrical services to the local commercial fishing vessel, tug and yacht markets. This strategic entry into the marine electrical market maintains the critical Seattle maritime business cluster and fills the void with the recent closing of Lunde Electric’s Marine Electrical Division. The selected asset purchase of Lunde Electric’s Marine Electrical Division will return longtime customers to the original location at the Pacific Fishermen shipyard where Olav Lunde started the Lunde marine electrical business in 1952.
Jim Kaldestad has been named PFI Marine Electric General Manager and will work together with Pacific Fishermen’s General Manager Doug Dixon in maintaining Pacific Fishermen as one of the Pacific Northwest’s premier full-service commercial and yacht ship repair facilities. Familiar faces and longtime marine electricians on the Seattle and Dutch Harbor waterfronts joining Jim include the previous marine electrical crew of Lunde Electric. Current Lunde Electric customers will have a seamless transition for their work in progress with the high technical skills and manpower levels of the electricians that have served them so well in the past.
Another important element in PFI Marine Electric’s formation is the transfer of Lunde Electric’s UL certified electrical panel shop producing custom UL certified switchboards and electrical control systems for the fishing, tug, yacht and commercial industries.
Pacific Fishermen’s shipyard is now able to provide a full-service commercial ship repair facility with in-house electrical contracting and engineering rounding out the traditional shipwright, boilermaker, machinist, painter and caulker trades. This assembly of quality union crafts has been maintaining seaworthiness of fishing vessels, tugs, cruise vessels and yachts in the North Pacific and Bering Sea since 1946. Location at the Ballard shipyard provides dock, shop, warehouse and open area that is hard to find on the exceedingly gentrified Lake Union Ship Canal. Recreational boat maintenance capability including Mercruiser, Westerbeke, Envision and Donzi sales up to 65 ft. is also available through Lieb Marine Service at the shipyard on Ballard’s freshwater side of the Government locks with easy access, ample free parking and close proximity to Shilshole yacht basin.
Pacific Fishermen’s shipyard was founded in 1946 on the site of the 1890s Ballard Marine Railway Co., Inc., famous for wooden halibut schooners and Navy minesweepers later named CALYPSO by Jacques Cousteau and WILD GOOSE by John Wayne. A 100’ x 200 ton marine railway, 160′ x 600 ton marine railway and the original Rowe Machinery Works 145′ x 600 ton covered screw lift dock with 140’ covered sidetrack rails provide for extended out of the water repairs on dry land. All three facilities are equipped for hull cleaning, high pressure washing and sandblasting with full environmental containment and on-site shipyard run-off wastewater reprocessing.
For more information regarding PFI Marine Electric call Jeremy McWhirter at (206) 909-7897. For Pacific Fishermen shipyard work contact Ship’s Chandlery Store Manager Tim Dow (206) 356-8165, Shipyard Superintendent Tom Harbin, (206) 730-0569 or General Manager Doug Dixon at (206) 718-0253. For recreational vessels contact Dave Liebrich (206) 284-2820 at Lieb Marine Services.