"Dad and boat building were intertwined. I'd work 12-14 hours a day, six or seven days a week. Then we'd go to our beach place at Eglon and be out on the water, paddling around. "Anchor kept things together. He stood by his friends in good times and bad. I remember when he hauled a fish boat that had sunk. The owner died, owing a couple of thousand dollars. Anchor didn't worry, didn't ask for payment. He said the widow had enough problems and he didn't feel right about collecting the money," DeWitt said. "Buzz" Dakan, a close family friend and shipwright who worked with Anchor in the boatyard for more than IO years, was very fond of Anchor as a mentor and friend. "What made Anchor special is that he took very common, even ordinary ideas, very simplistic mechanical applications, and he had these wonderful, intuitive, really spectacular concepts for repairs and for new (boat) construction, What he did was so simple and beautiful. He had very special eyes in a technical and literal sense, and he saw thing others didn't see. He had a photographic memory, He'd look inside a boat at a place we're going to repair and two weeks later he could sit down and draw it. In between he'd seen thousands of other things. "That just doesn't come to everybody, It made him special, along with being a really moral, really outstanding person," Buzz said.

Dick Carroll, historian with the Jensen Company, said Anchor was "a hard working, ingenious man who loved and supported his family and friends. He will be remembered as a generous and principled individual, his life can be an example for us all to follow. I cannot express the magnitude of our loss or how much we will miss him. I feel incredibly privileged that he considered me his friend."

Naval architect Bill Garden of Sidney, B.C., has known Anchor "since we were kids. He had so much all-out knowledge about boats and boat building. All the work was good value, beautiful, the finish was the best. If you classified the quality of work he did by sand paper grit that goes from 60 to 300, he'd be right near the top."

Another lifelong friend, architect John Adams of Bainbridge Island, went to Roosevelt High School with Anchor. "He had a 16' foot sailing canoe, a cat ketch with a gaff-rig. We sailed it quite a bit. One day his mother yelled out the window and said to bring the boat back in. Anchor couldn't swim."

However, Johnny Adams and Anchor were late to school on a regular basis during salmon fishing season, said his son DeWitt, Bob Schoen of Orcas Island said he and Anchor had been good friends since high school. "Stan Sayres told me that if it hadn't been for Anchor his Slo-mo boats would never have won anything. He said that before Anchor worked with him, half his boats couldn't get started in the races. With Anchor, the boats just took off and set records. He did a lot of good work." Schoen also said Anchor had built about 14 or 15 Coast Guard cutters believed designed by Ed Monk Sr. "The 50' boats built by Anchor were better than any of the others. I delivered one down the coast to San Francisco during World War II. "

Anchor's favorite Seattle restaurant was Voula's Offshore Cafe on Northlake Way, not far from his boatyard. "Anchor came in here twice daily for breakfast and lunch for 16 years, and would bring lots of people. He was always polite, always generous and friendly to all of us here. We will miss him so much," said Voula Viahos. "He was my best friend." A picture of Anchor hangs over the front door of the restaurant and a large photo of a Slo-mo is also prominent. Anchor Harry Harold Jensen was born July 25, 1918, in Victoria, B.C. He was the second son of Antonius (Tony) Marinus George Jensen, a boat-building musician, and Bessie (Butler) Jensen. In 1922 Tony launched the cruiser Tony Boy, which he built without power tools, sawing every plank by hand. "Dad was a gadgeteer," Anchor said in an interview four years ago. "He had everything on it-twice." In 1925 the family moved to Seattle in the boat and lived aboard Tony Boy near the present Queen City Yacht Club at the southeast end of Portage Bay. His dad started building boats near Green Lake in 1925 in the Miller Aircraft building near John Marshall School. "At this time my dad was playing first violin in the Seattle Symphony and the boat business was a hobby." Anchor started first grade at Seward School, but switched to Laurelhurst after the family moved to the site of the boatyard on Portage Bay's north shore. He commuted to school by rowboat and car. "Sometimes Gil Skinner drove all the neighborhood kids to school in a big Dusenburg," he said.

"When the boatyard opened on Portage Bay in 1927, my dad saw to it that I didn't have too much free time. He had me sweep floors, carry lumber and drive nos," Anchor said. Anchor said some of the early boats they built were the Veronica and Lady Sarah, both 36', and the Carolina and Kathleen, both 45'. 'We built tugs and barges for Nome Harbor Lightridge Co., now Northern Commercial, NC Marine. We built two tugs and two barges in 29 days with a big crew of 60 employees." Anchor started running power tools when he was 9-years-old. "I was working along with the fellas, getting in their hair. I helped run the steambox, shave plugs off boards, get screws-anything I could handle. Dad taught me to a certain degree, he knew how to do things, I learned in the school of hard knocks, and I don't make the same mistake twice." Anchor said his dad built boats for some famous people, including William Powell, the "Thin Man,' and Marie Dressier who played the role of Tugboat Annie. When he was 10 years old he worked with his father, lofting boat lines and rebuilding car engines. Morris Kane, owner and creator of the Perfect Piston Company and one of the best engine mechanics in the country, was having a boat built at Jensen Marine. "When he was there he started teaching Anchor even more about engines. Anchor's older brother George, a talented young man left to study industrial design on a scholarship to the Schaeffer School of Design in California when Anchor was 15, and his early boat designs impressed Anchor. Anchor himself had reviewed hundreds of boat designs drawn by some of the world's best naval architects. Anchor graduated from Roosevelt High school in 1937, an excellent student. While in high school Anchor built sets for school plays and other events. During that time he also helped the Blackstock brothers race boats at Green Lake, in addition to working every day and weekends at the boatyard. He loved anything that went fast. He was given an 18' boat that had sunk. He rebuilt her, added masts, a one-cylinder engine and named her the "love barge." Anchor attended the University of Washington for one semester. He quit, telling his professors that he could learn all he needed to know at the family boat business at home. In 193 8, Jensen's built the Meteor, designed by Anchor's brother George. One of the most modern, streamlined boats of the time, it is now owned by glassblowing artist Dale Chihuly. Anchor joined the Mountaineers as he loved to ski, hike and mountain climb. He skiied with Gretchen Frasier who was chosen for the U.S. Olympic Team. In the early years of World War It the Jensen company worked on contracts for the Navy, Army and Coast Guard, with Anchor as assistant manager running the business. He joined the Navy in 1944 and was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training Center for advanced training in Engineering, graduating with honors at the top of his class of 529 students. He declined offers to make the Navy his career, He served as a Fireman 1st class aboard the battleship Iowa, the aircraft carrier Belleau Wood, and was on deck on the Missouri during the Japanese surrender at the end of World War 11 in 1945, When he completed his Navy duty in 1946 he returned to work with his dad who was in ill health.

He also teamed up with Hans Otto Geise on Oslo to win the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in 1946,1947

and '1948. He began development work on Slo-mo-shun IV in 1948, and he continued to work on the hydroplanes, through 195 8. Sio-mo IV set a speed record of 178 mph for propeller driven boats in July 1952.

Anchor met his future wife, Ann Kathryn (A.K.) Clark in Sun Valley where they were both skiing. "And mom could ski, but not like my dad," DeWitt said. "He floated on skis." They were married in July 1950 and honeymooned in Hawaii. 'Phil Spaulding and I designed a 26' sailboat to compete with the Blanchard sailboats," Anchor said. "They worked out pretty good, but Blanchard had so many we should have done more of a cruising boat. Besides, dad leaned more to powerboats. We designed and built three nice 26' runabouts with a torpedo stem, each powered by a 12 cylinder Curtis-Wright 600 horsepower engine. Those things would rassle and go." He once said that repairing boats is never ending. 'Problems arise usually because somebody does a bum job." There are many, many stories about Anchor, far too many to tell here. Everyone who knew him had a favorite story about him. He was an institution. We think of Anchor in his unique boat yard. He can look at a problem and tell how to solve it. We see him as he hauls our boat out on the ways at the yard, stepping nimbly and sure footedly from dock to deck and back again, always in tan work clothes and navy blue watch cap. When he's sure the boat is properly shored and adjusted on the keel blocks, he starts the engine on the old marine railway and the boat is slowly hauled out of the water. We know our vessel is in good hands. Anchor was married 46 years. His wife, A.K., and son Whitney both preceded him in death. He is survived by his son, Anchor DeWitt Jensen, daughter-in-law Debra Jensen, grandsons Matthew and Erik; cousin Heidi Torrance, her husband Kirby and their son Hans, and friend "Buzz" Dakan. Anchor was a past member of the Seattle and Corinthian Yacht Clubs, member of the APBA and many other organizations. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his life long contributions, including his pioneering innovations in the world of hydroplanes and for his commitment and contributions to the Northwest boat building community. A family service was held at the Jensen family compound on Lopez Island on August 19. A memorial service will be held. Carl has been a friend and neighbor of Anchor Jensen for many years. He and Jo have hauled out their sloop Scheherazade at Jensen Motor Boat Company.