During the summer of 1999 the cabin on the boat was removed and some sanding done. The boat is currently in storage at Peter Pan. The Museum gave a $1000.00 scholarship to Dillingham resident Harold Andrew to help him attend the Northwest School of Wooden Boats in Port Townsend. Upon his return he will undertake the restoration of the boat. It is our intent to return the boat to original sailing condition in time for the 50th anniversary of the repeal of the law prohibiting motorized fishing boats in Bristol Bay.

By Sue Jeffery, Kodiak Daily Mirror - April 22, 1999
(Reprinted with permission)

The Mayelle, a Bristol Bay double-ender, will depart from Kodiak waters this month, but its sailing days are not over yet.

Gordon Gould and his wife, Pat Branson, bought the 29-foot wood-hulled craft 16 years ago and have sailed throughout the bays and straits of Kodiak Island since then. But this week the Mayelle is being transported to Samuel K. Fox Museum in Dillingham thanks to Tim Troll and Peter Pan Seafoods.

Gould, who owns another sailboat and hasn't sailed the Mayelle for a year, is glad she will enjoy a special, safe harbor in Dillingham."I wanted it to go to a good home," Gould says with affection. "It still has a centerboard.....the only one in Alaska intact."

The double-ender was built about 1930, one of the sleeker, faster sprit-rig sailboats designed to fish salmon in Bristol Bay and one of the first boats built to fish salmon after traps were outlawed.

By all accounts that was a rough fishery. The boats did not have cabins - Gould added a cabin and rub rail for comfort - so fishermen, always exposed to the weather, had to be tough. They also had to be good sailors. Federal regulations outlawed anything but sail power until 1952.

The original designs were called Columbia River boats built in the 1800s for San Fransisco Bay, Gould said. The boats built for Bristol Bay in the 1930s were beefed-up for Alaska waters, built beefy for Bristol Bay.

"Extra ribs were added" he said, standing in the sturdy open ribbed boat. "The planking is Port Orford yellow cedar - rot and bug resistant - the rub rails and splash rails are oak and the decks are fir."

Tim Troll, CEO for Choggiung, Ltd., a native village corporation in Dillingham, is the Mayelle's willing guardian."Several museums we've seen have double-enders in static displays," he said. "We hope to sail her.

When the Dillingham museum learned the Mayelle could be purchased, Troll said they were eager to obtain her for their collection. A Bristol Bay tender for Peter Pan will make a detour to Kodiak before heading out west for the salmon season.

"Of the ones I've been able to locate, this is one of the few still in sailing condition," he said. "And there are still parts and masts available in the canneries....I think I'll ask Fish and Game for an historical opening," Troll laughed.