Sam Devlin of Devlin Boats, and Mark Bunzel of Waggoner, will be aboard the William Garden designed 47-foot powerboat, Puffin, the lead boat for the 2024 Waggoner flotilla to Southeast Alaska, departing May 28. Puffin was built by Jensen Shipyard of Friday Harbor, Washington in 1966. She has a full displacement weight of 88,000 lbs., powered by a Gardner 6LXB diesel engine of 127 hp at 1500 rpms. Designed for longevity and low fuel consumption, Gardner engines always evoke Oos and Ahhs.
Puffin is a recent acquisition of Sam Devlin, who purchased the classic vessel to fulfill his dream of returning to Southeast Alaska. Yes, says Sam Devlin, “Puffin goes against the flow of several trends for me, the most obvious is that she is not a ‘Devlin’ boat. That point is hard to explain but keep in mind that this of course all makes sense in my own head. Let’s say just for conversation’s sake that maybe I prefer to be a bit busy in my life and perhaps feel a bit lost when not having at least 10 or more irons in the fire at any one time. Now couple that with the reality that I will be 70 next March and have a couple of new knees and a back that are the byproduct of building boats for many decades.” According to Sam, he prefers to live his life as a continual challenge and as one gigantic adventure. “That attitude has worked well so far, and I choose to continue on that tack as long as possible,” said Devlin.
Devlin goes on to share his thoughts. The primary question is “can Sam slow down and be a boat vagabond for a summer?” I truly don’t know the answer, but I long to find out and this next summer is the nominated time of discovery. Many of you know that when I was in college, I worked on tugboats in Alaska to support my college finances. During those years in Southeast Alaska, I fell in love with the raw beauty of it all. And yes, I did muse to myself that perhaps one day I would return to truly explore those waters that I could never do while standing at the wheel of a tug.
So, my dream goal is to tackle a very long cruise to Southeast Alaska next summer, leaving in May and returning just in time for the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, a dream that was established and approved by the committee of my family and friends. Next, I needed a proper boat to tackle the trip. As a lot of you know, I still have my lovely little Josephine and initially I was thinking of using her for this journey; but when looking at the list of things that needed attention, she seemed to be the wrong boat for my lifetime dream trip.
Yes, I could tackle building a new ‘Devlin’ boat for the journey but with my current workload and without a shop full of labor, needing directions, and without the funding necessary for a building project, that didn’t seem to be an option. A ‘Devlin’ boat would be at least a two-year building project and possibly would take another year or two to get ready for the long trip north. With a more realistic timeline close to 4-5 years, Capt. Sam might be running out of time.
Once I acknowledged the reality that I needed to do something now and not prolong it into a year-long project, it didn’t take long to look at the potential around me. Right about that time along came Lyle and Linda Petke and their beloved Puffin, a boat that I have known and followed for close to a dozen years or more. It was time for Puffin to find a new home, and Sam Devlin seemed like the proper mark for her next owner. Lyle and Linda were persistent and as of Thursday, October 26, we are now the owners of Puffin.
Puffin has three staterooms, stand-up headroom in her engine room, and a pilothouse that promises to be warm and cozy in all types of weather. There are three diesel heaters on board, two of them are in the pilothouse and another below, heating the three sleeping cabins. There is a head, a shower, a powder room (that can be converted to another head), a generator aft, and she has the tankage to take her 4,000 nautical miles between fill-ups. She is what we call in the business, a single-screw vessel without bow thrusters or any other way of helping with close maneuvers.
Yes, she is a bit of a ‘real boat,’ taking some grit to master and keep her in control. That said, I look forward to the challenge and very much look forward to the upcoming trip north this coming spring. You can learn more about Gardner engines, still serviced and overhauled, at gardnermarine.com.
By: Sam Devlin and Crew
of M.V. Puffin
