Interesting boats

[siestakey]

I think this is it I am on mobile

Where are Wink and Wilma? They are living aboard a Great Harbour 47 Trawler.: October 2006

 

[eyschulman]

Beautiful boat!! Do you have any pictures of the helm?

Helm picture.

 

[Tad Roberts]

Yesterday I found a 55-60 or so motor yacht in a small marina in Stuart when visiting a friend with a KK 39. Later, I learned that the boat was a "Richardson". It was very odd, but the hardware and quality looked amazing. I couldn't find on on-line, but I did find this other example of an odd looking, oddly hulled Richardson.

1976 55 (ft.) Richardson Aluminum Motor Yacht for sale in ON. | ID 146551

Richardson motoryachts are/were very conventionally styled typical boats of the day. Their construction, of round bottom planked aluminum, was pretty unconventional and required huge man-hours. They couldn't compete with fiberglass.

The boat in the link has a far more interesting history. She is a Phil Bolger design (excluding the horrible tophouse addition), originally built in Iceland in the mid 1960's and named Thorfinn. Her drawings appear in the first edition of Voyaging Under Power. Originally she was 46'7" long, speed was 18.5 knots, and she was used as a fast cruiser with sport fishing ability. She was shipped to the US to be exhibited at the Miami Boatshow, and during unloading in Norfolk a sling broke. She fell 40', struck her side on the edge of the dock, and landed in the water upside down. She righted almost instantly (again without the upper house). She was declared a constructive loss.

I guess someone bought her, had Richardson do a rebuild-extension, and she's been cruising ever since.

 

[Tad Roberts]

This thread has been going on so long I've probably posted these shots before. I saw this boat in Silva Bay, BC a year or so ago, and it intrigued me the moment I first saw it.

It would not make any sort of distance cruiser unless one really wanted to rough it. But it looks like it would be a ton of fun to poke around the islands in, do a little crabbing, shrimping and fishing, etc.

I have no idea what powers it, although I suspect it's probably a gas engine unless this is a current reproduction of an older style boat, in which case it could be a little diesel.

She's a William Hand design from 1908, built by Doug Hylan in Maine in 2001. You can find her on the New Construction page as "Tug". D. N. Hylan & Associates | Brooklin, Maine | Building and Restoring Classic Wooden Boats Originally she had a gas engine, then my friend Don bought her and installed a little Volvo diesel, maybe 25 HP? Headroom under the foredeck is not 4', there is no room down there. I keep trying to get him to build a decent pilothouse on the boat, it may happen.

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

Thanks for the back stories on those boats , Tad

 

[bluebyu]

+1
Tad, thanks for sharing your great info.
It is appreciated.

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

I was thinking Phil Bolger had a design along those lines. Quite a departure from his later years "box boats". It must have been in VUP that I saw it.

 

[healhustler]

Geeze....what amazing stories some of those boats have. Thanks for the color, Tad.

 

[N4712]

Helm picture.

Thanks!

 

[eyschulman]

Here is a better one I found. I switched the wheel between the two shots my wife does not like the spoke wheel. The destroyer gives better access to the instrument controls especially the wind shield wipers behind the wheel. The helm seat is a double and there is a copilot seat to port with a large flat area for a full chart. the co pilot area has a second independent nav station so my wife can follow chart plotter and radar or use a VHF and AIS on her own.

 

[Marin]

She's a William Hand design from 1908, built by Doug Hylan in Maine in 2001. .

Cool. Thanks a bunch for the story behind the boat. I really like the design. I see your point about having a regular pilothouse, but the one on there now is pretty interesting.

I have no idea how the owner uses the boat, but if he uses it as a local "gunkholer" I think it woudl be a lot of fun to explore with, go crabbing, and whatnot. I assume he uses it for crabbing or shrimping as he's got a pot puller installed.

 

[Marin]

So I was cleaning out one of my computers and came across a few photos that might fit the "interesting boats" topic.

The first one is what I suspect is an ex-BC or Washington Forestry or Fisheries boat. Very nice example of the type. I don't remember where I shot the photo. I want to say Silva Bay but I'm not sure it was.

Second photo definitely was taken at Silva Bay. We saw this boat under restoration for a year or two but as of the other year the restoration seemed to be complete as it was on a mooring. Another very interesting boat to me, and one that I would think would be a fun one to use in exploring the BC raincoast. I like the little aft cabin.

The third photo is a boom boat beavering away making up rafts in..... Beaver Cove, up the north end of Vancouver Island. I've always found these go-any-direction boats intriguing and loads of fun to watch. Years ago at Vancouver's Expo 86 they had a team of five or six of the best boom boat drivers in BC that performed a choreographed "Boom Boat Ballet" to music in False Creek.

The last photo is of the Montgomery 7-11 rowing/sailing dinghy that came with our boat. It's too tender to use as a utility shoreboat, so we added a Livingston on the stern for that purpose. But we kept the sailing dinghy which sits in a cradle on top of the aft cabin. I've sailed it a few times and it's a hell of a lot of fun. It rows very well, too, as our friends from France discovered. The length is 7' 11", , hence the model name. This shot was taken at Spencer Spit near Sidney.

 

[Art]

My choice is Tamarack. Like to see her underway. Bet she slips through water effortlessly; at hull speed or just below - eight to nine knots? Eleven at WOT? Thanks for more nice boat porn!

 

[Marin]

I agree. Perhaps Tad knows something of this boat's history. The owners of these kinds of boats tend to leave the name alone. As the tamarack (aka larch) is a tree common in the forests on the eastern slopes of the Cascades/Coast Range, I would guess that this was once a BC Forestry boat despite the Washington registry. I seem to recall reading that the BC forests folks named their boats after trees, but I could be wrong on this.

I've seen a number of really nice restorations/conversions of these forestry and fisheries boats in Puget Sound and up the BC coast over the years. It's kind of neat because every one of them is different. They weren't all built to the same design.

 

[Ted]

Tamarack, ex BC Forestry Service boat.
Up here that type of boomboat is called a sidewinder. The power is a hydraulicly drivin
leg through the bottom of the hull. Steering is 360 degree continuous.
Ted

 

[Marin]

Tamarack, ex BC Forestry Service boat.

Thanks, Tad. Do you know anything about the boat in the second photo? The registration number is readable in the photo, 25K705. So far as I recall, the boat did not have a name painted on it. The first time we saw it the topsides were being worked on by three or four older fellows. The next time we saw it they were painting the boat.

It is sort of reminiscent of the Columbia river gillnetters and Monterey herring boats, but with a much larger forward cabin. So it doesn't seem to me that the boat was built for fishing unless someone did an extensive reconfiguration at some point.

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

Wooden boat mag did a piece on ex forestry boats (several years back) but I can't remember if Tamarack was in the article. She looks purdy!

 

[Ted]

Marin,
Sorry I don't know anything about the 2nd picture except what you
have posted.
She looks like she'd be a real pretty little Gulf Islands boat.
Ted

 

[Tad Roberts]

The Tamarack was built in Vancouver in 1927 as the B.C.P. #42 (British Columbia Packers). She was probably used as a seiner. Then she went to Bill Vivian (Vivian Engine Company Vancouver) and was re-named Miss Vivian, and converted with yacht style (of the day) accommodation. In 1938 the BC Forest Service bought her for use on the West Coast (Vancouver Island). They rebuilt the boat after a year's service and moved her to Echo Bay/Port Hardy. The Forest Service sold her in 1978.
Her current home port is Deer Harbour Washington but she visits us most years.

The second picture (25K705) is the little ex-troller U&I, pronounced you-and-eye. She was built in Port Alberni in (I'm guessing) the late 1940's. Power is a little Perkins, maybe a 4-108, I've forgotten. I bought the boat once for $2 to benefit the Shipyard School (now closed) and made a nice cruise in her to Brentwood Bay towing one of the open boats built in the school. U&I is unusual in that she was built with the pilothouse/engine further aft than the usual fishboat. Consequently her foc'sl is far larger than you would imagine, it's actually a really nice bright living space. She even has a head with a door down there.

 

[Tad Roberts]

Incidentally the old "K' number registration system was pretty useful. 25K was Port Alberni, 13K was Vancouver, 6K was Nanaimo, etc....That's all been superseded by the current BC number, totally useless, but easy for the bureaucrats.....

 

[Tad Roberts]

U&I in her fishing days.....Bamfield I believe.....

 

[Marin]

Thanks much, Tad, for that great info on both boats and the photo of the little troller. (And I appologize, Ted, for reading so fast that I mistook "Tad" for "Ted" earlier). I

I'm sorry to hear the shipyard school at Silva Bay is closed. The last time we were there (last year) the whole operation looked pretty abandonned. The first time we were there they had a lovely little wooden sloop on the ways that I assume had been built by the school or was being restored by them.

Everyone has their favorite boats or types of boats. To me, after my all-time favorite which is the long-gone aku boat of Honolulu, are the Washington and BC west coast fishing boats, the trollers and seiners of the early 1900s up through the 1950s or so, in the style of the two Tad provided the info on. I can't really put my finger on it, but these boats just look to me the way boats should look.

A very close third is the New England/Canadian Maritime coastal lobsterboat.

While the Grand Banks is not what we consider the ideal recreational cruiser--- we prefer a piiothouse boat like the Krogen, deFever, or Fleming--- we were both attracted to the GB partly because older ones are very high quality but dirt cheap, and partly because, for a purely recreational production boat, they come closest in appearance to the west coast working boats we like so much.

Photo is our not-a-troller. Cover up the house aft of the helm station and the resemblence to a "real" boat starts becoming apparent.

 

[Tad Roberts]

I'm sorry to hear the shipyard school at Silva Bay is closed. The last time we were there (last year) the whole operation looked pretty abandonned.

Well, the school is indeed closed but the facility is not at all abandoned. The Shipyard is thriving, they built a new big ways carriage last summer. It will take a 60-80 ton boat and you can do your own work. One of the few places left in this area to allow that. The small travellift will take boats the size of U&I (35' ish). There's a small chandlery with the usual stock.

The school shop space has been divided into three shops. Tony Jarvis Joinery is in one, Barefoot Wooden Boats in the middle, and John Brown on the end. The later two are graduates of the Shipyard School. Barefoot built one of my personal boats and have built a number of my designs. They should be starting another in a week or two for an early spring launch.

Silva Bay shipyard entertains an old guest

If you have boat woodwork that needs doing, Silva Bay is not a bad place to come.

 

[Ted]

Hi Marin,
IF apology was needed I think it would be due to Tad, not me.
It's more like a compliment to me.
All in good spirits anyway.
Ted

 

[Conrad]

Speaking of boom boats, we encountered this one in Chatham Channel (Broughtons) last summer. A long way from anywhere, especially any booming operations, and the only one I've ever seen without a pilothouse/shelter of any kind. He was probably doing 3-4 knots flat out, and certainly needed the foul weather gear he was wearing. You can see the horizontal steering wheel mentioned in another post.

 

[Tad Roberts]

Speaking of boom boats, we encountered this one in Chatham Channel (Broughtons) last summer. A long way from anywhere, especially any booming operations, and the only one I've ever seen without a pilothouse/shelter of any kind. He was probably doing 3-4 knots flat out, and certainly needed the foul weather gear he was wearing. You can see the horizontal steering wheel mentioned in another post.

Beer run to Minstrel.....

 

[Marin]

Well, the school is indeed closed but the facility is not at all abandoned. The Shipyard is thriving,

Great to hear that. Silva Bay is one of our favorite spots in the Gulf Islands. It also makes a great jumping off spot for crossing the Strait of Georgia as a course from there to the Merry Island light or the Thormaby Islands puts one south of Whiskey Golf although that area seems fairly inactive these days.

 

[Animal]

1944 Ex Admiralty Motor Vessel Auxiliary Ketch

So here is a sister ship to the above who has a starkly different interpretation but whose restoration is no less impressive!

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1960/G-L-Watson-Motor-Yacht-former-MFV-2787901/#.VGjESIhOKrU

 

[OFB]

I was at shelter island for some time and took a few pics of interesting boats while waiting for paint to dry. I hope non have been posted back a bit, but if so Sorry for that.

 

[Wayfarer]

This. I want this badly. She doesn't appear to have a genny, or A/C, and there doesn't seem to be much room in the engine room for any such additions. Otherwise, she's prettymuch exactly what I'm looking for.