Restoration Of The
General Pershing This entertaining 8 min. 35 sec. movie shows the year 2020 restoration/refit and relaunch of the General Pershing. The original movie, shown at group presentations, is 13 min 2 sec long and includes year 2014 refit. |
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Transcription of "Thank You Speech" by Mark Siino
Rechristening of the General Pershing - January 26, 2021
Introduction
Mark Siino
Volunteers and amazing crew have put in thousands of hours, literally thousands of hours in an incredible feat for what we have going on (celebrating) here today. There’s a number of people to thank.
First I want to explain what the Monterey Boat Heritage, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit is all about. We started this because the General Pershing boat fished for 75 years and harvested a lot of fish. It also represents courageous crews. I don’t know how many commercial fishermen we have here, but that industry represents fearless individuals who with extreme courage fish in deep water like this boat has done with its crews.
We have restored the General Pershing to give it a different future; to teach children about clean water and climate change (which is a real event) and seems to have been forgotten in the last many years. We have known that in the last 50 years resources are limited and yet we haven’t done enough about it.
General Pershing (for whom this boat was named) was an incredible military figure as well as an educator. The General was also a dedicated member of the BPO Elks until his death in 1948; so in keeping with his legacy, we plan to carry that name forward in doing productive nonprofit work for the betterment of the ocean, the children and other educational goals.
Volunteers and amazing crew have put in thousands of hours, literally thousands of hours in an incredible feat for what we have going on (celebrating) here today. There’s a number of people to thank.
First I want to explain what the Monterey Boat Heritage, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit is all about. We started this because the General Pershing boat fished for 75 years and harvested a lot of fish. It also represents courageous crews. I don’t know how many commercial fishermen we have here, but that industry represents fearless individuals who with extreme courage fish in deep water like this boat has done with its crews.
We have restored the General Pershing to give it a different future; to teach children about clean water and climate change (which is a real event) and seems to have been forgotten in the last many years. We have known that in the last 50 years resources are limited and yet we haven’t done enough about it.
General Pershing (for whom this boat was named) was an incredible military figure as well as an educator. The General was also a dedicated member of the BPO Elks until his death in 1948; so in keeping with his legacy, we plan to carry that name forward in doing productive nonprofit work for the betterment of the ocean, the children and other educational goals.
Thank you
There’s so many people to thank. I took a picture of the boat as it was coming out of the water 7 months ago for a fellow, who had seen the boat a couple of years prior to that, I sent it to Dennis Corum from Seattle in a text to see if he could give us a hand. He said “sure, I’ll give you a couple of weeks,” well that was 7 months ago [laugh]. It’s incredible that he stuck it out, my brother and I have been down here (minus four or five days) every day for the last 7 months and Dennis has been there the same amount of time head down, stalwart he brought his knowledge his tenacity and just kept us going. He has a great support crew as well, his sister Claudia Harden (the biscotti queen) provided us with endless amounts of biscotti that kept us going. We can’t thank her enough for that. We’d always wait for the bag and sometimes they came in warm. Her husband Chris Harden their sons Daniel and Alex Ball helped paint and kept Dennis going.
I’d also like to thank Jerry and Sally King who gave us a discounted residence for Dennis while he was here. It happened cosmically his spending 4 months on Seeno Street (reference to family name Siino/Seeno) which is an interesting thing. . .
Steve Heron, incredible, hundreds and hundreds of hours. Dennis, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours for many months Steve worked right along side him to take this boat that came up in basically remnants to now put it back in the water restored. She’s launching today thanks to these wood craftsmen as well as Jim Johnson (JJ), Mike Cappetti & Steve Savoldi. It was a huge undertaking and there are no words, except, thank you so much for what you’ve done [Clapping], it’s just really something else. Thank you.
Matt Bellaci, plumber and painter; you know, just incredible. Matt’s given us a lot of time, plumbing fittings for a boat like this is not an easy thing to take apart. He's just been great.
Nan Perry and the painting crew—Nan's been here under the hull doing the grody work. They’ve been dauntless with Chris Freeman, Tim Ladd; can’t thank you guys enough for what you’ve done. We’ve had volunteers like Ed Sigourney, Ron Allen, Gary O’Brien, and Glen Wild who’s been down here. Wally Fett from Marine Electronics gave us things at cost and donated hours of his time, can’t thank you enough.
I’d also like to thank Jim MacNeely, wood boat craftsman, who learned his specialty from our father Frank Siino and uncle Ray Siino.
The Motor Works by Rory Brandt Buckingroth, Rory—we’ve known all our lives, it’s just incredible the things that he’s done for us to keep the motor sound, the heart and soul of the boat. The wood craftsmanship is incredible doing the best we could following the “Masters-of-the-day.” Taking this boat apart and seeing how it was built, blew my mind the first time I did it just to see how the “Masters-of-the-Day” put it together. Our grandfather, Angelo Siino built this boat, started sometime in the 1920’s launched her in 1930 with the help of his two brothers Gaetano and Francesco. They were Sicilian boat builders, straight out of the old country, along with our great grand father (Erasmo) who also lent a hand (we are told). This boat is very much a family legacy, built by master craftsmen. The stories that we’ve heard about their history are numerous;
what they did to put boats like this in the water; keeping in mind the health and safety of the fishermen. These craftsmen were incredible, The stories that we’ve heard about their history are numerous.
Thank you to the Boat Yard personnel; Diane Colwel, General Manager and all the great Boat Yard crew including Larry, Mike & Rachel. We thank the Boat Yard owners Mike Maiorana and Barton Bruno as well as Chuck Piccuta for discount considerations.
People like Blair passing by me here, the yachtsmen that come in through here, the Italian fishermen that have stopped and told us stories about our family and their families reinforces the fact that every family’s got a story.
I’d also like to thank Jerry and Sally King who gave us a discounted residence for Dennis while he was here. It happened cosmically his spending 4 months on Seeno Street (reference to family name Siino/Seeno) which is an interesting thing. . .
Steve Heron, incredible, hundreds and hundreds of hours. Dennis, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours for many months Steve worked right along side him to take this boat that came up in basically remnants to now put it back in the water restored. She’s launching today thanks to these wood craftsmen as well as Jim Johnson (JJ), Mike Cappetti & Steve Savoldi. It was a huge undertaking and there are no words, except, thank you so much for what you’ve done [Clapping], it’s just really something else. Thank you.
Matt Bellaci, plumber and painter; you know, just incredible. Matt’s given us a lot of time, plumbing fittings for a boat like this is not an easy thing to take apart. He's just been great.
Nan Perry and the painting crew—Nan's been here under the hull doing the grody work. They’ve been dauntless with Chris Freeman, Tim Ladd; can’t thank you guys enough for what you’ve done. We’ve had volunteers like Ed Sigourney, Ron Allen, Gary O’Brien, and Glen Wild who’s been down here. Wally Fett from Marine Electronics gave us things at cost and donated hours of his time, can’t thank you enough.
I’d also like to thank Jim MacNeely, wood boat craftsman, who learned his specialty from our father Frank Siino and uncle Ray Siino.
The Motor Works by Rory Brandt Buckingroth, Rory—we’ve known all our lives, it’s just incredible the things that he’s done for us to keep the motor sound, the heart and soul of the boat. The wood craftsmanship is incredible doing the best we could following the “Masters-of-the-day.” Taking this boat apart and seeing how it was built, blew my mind the first time I did it just to see how the “Masters-of-the-Day” put it together. Our grandfather, Angelo Siino built this boat, started sometime in the 1920’s launched her in 1930 with the help of his two brothers Gaetano and Francesco. They were Sicilian boat builders, straight out of the old country, along with our great grand father (Erasmo) who also lent a hand (we are told). This boat is very much a family legacy, built by master craftsmen. The stories that we’ve heard about their history are numerous;
what they did to put boats like this in the water; keeping in mind the health and safety of the fishermen. These craftsmen were incredible, The stories that we’ve heard about their history are numerous.
Thank you to the Boat Yard personnel; Diane Colwel, General Manager and all the great Boat Yard crew including Larry, Mike & Rachel. We thank the Boat Yard owners Mike Maiorana and Barton Bruno as well as Chuck Piccuta for discount considerations.
People like Blair passing by me here, the yachtsmen that come in through here, the Italian fishermen that have stopped and told us stories about our family and their families reinforces the fact that every family’s got a story.
Closing
Mark Siino
We plan to repurpose this part of our history and anybody who wants to get on our website MontereyBoatHeritage.org are invited to enter their family history and join our team.
Today, we've been granted this slot of good weather to launch the newly restored General Pershing, and we’re going to take advantage of it, I’m sure there’s a lot of other things that I could say, Andy do you have something to say?
Andy Siino
I just want to thank everybody who gave us a hand here WE OWE YOU A LOT! You’ve been here a long time, you’ll be glad to go home. And we’ll be glad to see you go because that means we don’t have to come down here every day. [laugh] Thank you very much for all the support.
Mark Siino
Ed and Janet Martinez are part of our family, our family historians who got us going on this path. Thanks so much for all the publications, the prints and the marketing boards.
You’re all in our hearts and minds, it’s been an epic event. Really proud of my brother (Andy). This guy climbed under the 871 Detroit diesel in the bilge to clean out every pocket of grime he could; I mean, that’s something else. Coming down out of the mountains as we both did to keep this thing together with all the support, stories and thumbs up from the yachtsmen and boat owners that came through encouraging us with “Looks Good” and “thumbs up”. At the end of the day when it’s dark and you’re driving in that last screw and you think you can’t do more, somebody comes up and says “looking good” carried us through. We hope the best is yet to come, we’ll see how she does in the water. Dennis thanks so much, anything you want to say?
Dennis
Bon Voyage
We plan to repurpose this part of our history and anybody who wants to get on our website MontereyBoatHeritage.org are invited to enter their family history and join our team.
Today, we've been granted this slot of good weather to launch the newly restored General Pershing, and we’re going to take advantage of it, I’m sure there’s a lot of other things that I could say, Andy do you have something to say?
Andy Siino
I just want to thank everybody who gave us a hand here WE OWE YOU A LOT! You’ve been here a long time, you’ll be glad to go home. And we’ll be glad to see you go because that means we don’t have to come down here every day. [laugh] Thank you very much for all the support.
Mark Siino
Ed and Janet Martinez are part of our family, our family historians who got us going on this path. Thanks so much for all the publications, the prints and the marketing boards.
You’re all in our hearts and minds, it’s been an epic event. Really proud of my brother (Andy). This guy climbed under the 871 Detroit diesel in the bilge to clean out every pocket of grime he could; I mean, that’s something else. Coming down out of the mountains as we both did to keep this thing together with all the support, stories and thumbs up from the yachtsmen and boat owners that came through encouraging us with “Looks Good” and “thumbs up”. At the end of the day when it’s dark and you’re driving in that last screw and you think you can’t do more, somebody comes up and says “looking good” carried us through. We hope the best is yet to come, we’ll see how she does in the water. Dennis thanks so much, anything you want to say?
Dennis
Bon Voyage
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