The Boat Builder

William Watts Jr, BC Single Scull Rowing Champion, 1890. Courtesy Vancouver Archives. Click to enlarge.

Watts was already an oarsman, sailor, and expert Georgian Bay boat builder thanks to his father, William Sr, when he arrived in Vancouver at age 26.  William Watts Jr won this 3' rowing trophy two years later in 1890 for the Burrard Inlet (now the Vancouver) Rowing Club.  He later wrote of his victory that "I received a great advertizement for my rowing, as well as for my boats." --from a 10-page autobiography in the Vancouver Archives.

Among the vessels built in Watts' shipyard:
   > The racing yacht Syren (below)
   > First BC steamboat Miramichi
    > First BC purpose-built lifeboat
   > Maple Leaf, 1904, a luxury yacht for ten years, then a halibut schooner for sixty years into the 70's, and for the 40+ years since then, a successful luxury-charter vessel again for eco-touring up and down the west coast.

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William Watts Jr (1862-1954) came to Vancouver from Collingwood, Ontario, in December, 1888.  With hometown partner Ed Trott, he began building boats on the beach between Cambie and Abbott streets in what was then called "Granville" -- later Vancouver BC, Canada.  Already a talented self-promoter, he determined to make a name for himself by becoming BC's champion rower.  He built his own 20' rowing scull and after months of exercise and practice, won a 3-foot First Place trophy (photo) at the 1890 Provincial Regatta in Victoria.  In 1892 he opened "Vancouver  Ship Yards Co. Ltd"  where he and Trott and their workmen built the Chief Skugaid in 1913.  They also built a sister ship, Chief Zibassa, and scores of other vessels, large and small-- including hundreds of Columbia/Fraser River Skiffs.  His largest vessel was the 135' SS Teco for AJT Taylor & Associates. The fastest was the rumrunning shoreboat Skeezix, renamed the Fleetwood in the 60's, and now being restored in Steveston, BC.

Where the Chief Skugaid was built:
"Vancouver Ship Yards Company Ltd"

Below, Watts' new Burrard Inlet shipyard in Coal Harbour across from Stanley Park, shortly after his 1892 move westward, down the Georgia Street shoreline to Gilford St.

William Watts at centre, standing hands-on-hips. In the dark doorway to the right, a worker holds up several brooms... For a couple years Watts made them commercially with equipment from Chicago and broomcorn (longbranch sorghum cuttings) from Texas. But he found he could not compete with brooms "made by prisoners." Vancouver Public Library Special Collecions.

Vancouver Ship Yards Co Ltd in 1902, located on Georgia St. at Gilford in Coal Harbour, Vancouver, now Devonian Park. Courtesy of the Vancouver Archives. Click to enlarge.

 Above, Watt's Vancouver Ship Yard on Georgia Street in 1902, ten years after he relocated from the north foot of Cambie Street, and two years before he built the 92' luxury yacht Maple Leaf.  The photograph was taken from the shoreline , now Devonian Park, just east of Gilford Street.

Click to enlarge: owner William Watts is in the centre, arms folded and wearing a tie, among 22 employees.  They built a variety of vessels, including skiffs, yachts, excursion vessels (at left in the photo above), fishboats like the Chief Skugaid, and in the 20's-30's, fast   shoreboats (see below) for liquor smuggling.

Below, the Coal Harbour shoreline on Georgia Street across from Stanley Park, a decade after the Chief Skugaid was built.  Upper right is the Vancouver Yacht Club and Rowing Club, and "Deadman's Island," the former island-cemetery of the Squamish people. It was taken over by the Canadian Navy and christened HMCS Discovery.  Watts' Vancouver Ship Yards is at the extreme right, the square white building-front with three windows.

Coal Harbour, 1926, EXTREME RIGHT, MID-FRAME: Wm Watts' Vancouver Ship Yards Ltd on Georgia Street-- the square white building-front with three windows. UPPER RIGHT: The 102 year old (1911) Vancouver Rowing Club, and further up, HMCS Discovery, formerly "Squtsahs"--a Squamish island-cemetery, now subject to Squamish & Musqueam land claims. It was simply taken by the federal government in 1944, and converted to naval/military/security services and training. Courtesy City of Vancouver Archives.

A 1930's photo of Watts' shipyard, before it felt the effects of the Depression, and before the huge Denman Arena burned down next door. Watts had recently retired, prosperous and still active. The Patricks, father and sons, had built the Denman Arena in 1911. Its capacity was 10,500 people, the largest arena in Canada and the first rink to make its own ice. The massive structure, and an auditorium added later, caused displacement of much of Vancouver's seafaring Polynesian immigrant community. Hawaiian sailors had settled with their new Canadian families on shoreline land that was called Kanaka Ranch. The term derived from the Polynesian for "free man." Vancouver Public Library, Historical Photographs, #11390.

The Iconic Rumrunner Skeezix:
Built by Wm Watts' Vancouver Shipyard Ltd, 1930

*During US Prohibition in the 1920's, before Captain Watts retired, Vancouver Ship Yards Ltd built a number of motorboats of such power and design that they must have been intended as "shoreboats" for making speedy deliveries of contraband liquor to shoreline wharfs and jetties in the USA. One of them, probably the pinnacle of "fast boat" design, was Skeezix, built in 1930 for Henry J Reifel's Pacific and Foreign Navigation Co.
For Chief Skugaid's rumrunning career, click on "The Chief Skugaid" in the menu above at left.

Re Skeezix:
From Britannia Heritage Shipyard Society text, "Steveston Recollections, the History of a Village" in Virtual Museums of Canada:
"Built in 1930 and originally named SKEEZIX, this 60-foot rum runner with her diesel engine, two [450hp Liberty] gas aircraft engines and streamlined hull was said to be the fastest boat on the coast. At speeds of up to 40 nautical miles per hour, she was well able to elude the [US] Coast Guard cruisers. In 1934 she was converted to a luxury yacht. She was donated to the Britannia Heritage Shipyard by the family of Robert Turnbull who had owned her since 1976. (BHS).

From "Slow Boat on Rum Row," Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park BC, 1992.

With a beam of only 12 feet, but 57 feet long, the Skeezix was surely the first of what are now known as "cigarette boats."  Sometime after Prohibition, she was owned by the Segal family of the Army & Navy Dept Store chain, then in the 1960's by high-rolling scofflaw developer Nelson Skalbania.  Skalbania sold Skeezix to Robert Turnbull in 1976.  He worked on her restoration until he died in 2001.  Turnbull's family donated the vessel, by then renamed the Fleetwood, to Britannia Heritage Shipyard Society in 2002. 

SKEEZIX, the front half. Presently being restored at Britannia Shipyards, Steveston, by the Britannia Heritage Shipyard Society.

SKEEZIX, the back half. Presently being restored at Britannia Shipyard, Steveston, by the Britannia Heritage Shipyard Society.

Former rumrunner deckhand and radio-operator Fraser Miles, later a BC Hydro Ass't General Manager for Engineering, reports in his autobiographical Slow Boat on Rum Row that Skeezix was owned initially by the "Pacific and Foreign Navigation Co," headquartered at 1206 Homer in Vancouver.  This company and the Homer St building are linked to Henry F Reifel through his rumrunning company, Consolidated Exporters Ltd and a group of Vancouver hotel owners.

Respectable SKEEZIX in the '60's, conventionally renamed "Fleetwood," perhaps by one of her post-Prohibition owners, Jacquie Cohen's family, or Nelson Skalbania.

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Canadian Boatbuilding and Wm Watts Sr & Jr:
10' Skiffs to a 135' Freighter

Until the early 20th century, thousands of small open boats were in daily use on Canada's lakes, rivers, and coastal waterways.  Versatile 10'-20' boats--rowed, sailed, or both-- were essential for everyday transportation, commerce, and small-scale commercial fishing. Beginning in 1842, the Collingwood Skiff became the standard throughout Ontario and the Great Lakes.  It was introduced, but not invented, by the Watts family of boat builders from County Sligo, Ireland. 

The Ulster Drontheim Boat

In Sligo, south of Ulster on Ireland's west coast, William Watts Sr and his brother Matthew were builders of the Ulster Drontheim Boat, locally pronounced "Drumtin."  Distantly but directly related to marauding Viking ships, 800-900 AD, the Drontheim developed in the early 1800's from small open boats imported to northern Ireland as deck cargo on lumber-ships arriving from... Trondheim, Norway.  Boats were being imported to Ireland because of a shortage of lumber: Ireland had been largely deforested since neolithic times. The imported vessels were 20' to 28' long, lapstrake-built, with one or two sprit-sails, sharp bow and stern, and a retractable centreboard.  Watts Sr "was known to build his boats by eye," without using forms to create the hull profile.

This and other material here about the Dronthem Boat and Watts Sr is from "The Voyage of the Drontheim: From Greencastle Yawl to Mackinaw Boat" by Gordon Ramsey, a paper for a course in Cultural Geography supervised by Prof, Paul Davies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario: 2003, revised April 2004.

From Toronto Island to Collingwood, Ontario

After immigrating to Canada in 1842, William Watts Sr and his brother Matthew built hundreds, "perhaps thousands" of boats on Toronto Island before they moved to Collingwood.  What became known as their "Collingwood Skiffs" also became a Canadian touchstone for quality in small, open boats.

A Collingwood Skiff with bowsprit jib, 1904, in Georgian Bay near Midland, Ontario, Canada. From the website of The Causeway Coast Maritime Heritage Group, originating in Portrush, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

A museum display in Collingwood. Probably a Mackinaw skiff. Photo courtesy of the Chung Library and Archives, Vancouver Maritime Museum.

The original Watts boathouse in Collingwood; relocated, restored, and repurposed for the Collingwood Dragonboat and Canoe Club. City of Collingwood website.

When he came to Vancouver, the younger Wm Watts applied the Collingwood Skiff design to the needs of local customers. In his 10-page autobiography, typed and preserved by Vancouver's first archivist James Skitt Matthews, Watts describes his first big order when he and Trott were still 'downtown,' on the beach at the foot of Cambie:
One year I built to the order of HC Bell-Irving one hundred round-bottom fishboats complete with centre board, mainsail, and jib ready for sea, 25ft long 7.5ft beam-- for salmon fishing on the Fraser River. One boat went out of the shop every day, finished all but painting; all mackinaw type boats, after the type used on the Great Lakes: one sail and a jib; sloop rigged. Vancouver Archives, Wm Watts papers.

His design is still known variously as both the Columbia River Skiff and the Fraser River Skiff.  Below is a recently built Fraser River Skiff from the website of the Fraser River Discovery Centre in New Westminster, BC.

From 1 July 2011 to 15 August 2013, the historic, 100 year-old Chief Skugaid was tied up right beside Discovery Centre, on the north bank of the Fraser River in New Westminster.

This Watts-inspired Fraser River Skiff in the Fraser River Discovery Centre in New Westminster was built in 2010 by volunteers dedicated to maintaining local boating heritage. Tied up at the pier adjacent to the Discovery Centre is the 100-year-old Watts-built CHIEF SKUGAID.

Early Vancouver Yacht: Syren

Before he moved his boatworks to Coal Harbour, Watts and his partner from Collingwood, Ed Trott, built a phenomenally successful racing yacht. With Watts himself at the helm and six socially-prominent crew, the Syren won many races, including the "first International Yacht Race" on the Pacific coast in 1891.  Photo and race detail from the files of Major James Skitt Matthews, Vancouver Archivist, held at the Vancouver Archives.

Built in 1890, before Watts' move to Coal Harbour, his racing yacht SYREN won the "first International" Yacht Race on the Pacific Coast in 1891 at Fairhaven in Bellingham Bay, Washington. Photo and information provided by Captain Watts himself to Major Matthews in 1939. Held in the William Watts files at Vancouver Archives.

Early Vancouver Vessels Designed and  Builty by Wm Watts 
        Ysidro

Below, from "Pacific Yachting" magazine, December 1987: the seventy-seven year old Ysidro, designed and built in 1910 by Wm Watts and his Vancouver Ship Yards staff.

        SS Teco

In his 10-page autobiography, Watts listed a vessel built for a former employee in his shipyard:
"The largest boat we built was the SS Teco to the order of AJT Taylor & Associates, 135 ft. long, 24 ft. beam, powered with a 250 HP Bolinder internal combustion engine, speed 8 knots carrying 300 tons."

AJT Taylor
Watts met the family of young Alfred James Towle Taylor during a sailing trip in the Nanaimo area in 1903.  Taylor's father had started and ran the biological station at Departure Bay.  Watts was impressed with young Taylor, who had no education and worked in a Nanaimo foundry.  Watts offered him an apprenticeship in the shipyard.  So in 1904 at age sixteen "Fred" Taylor came to Vancouver and earned $5/month in Watts' shipyard.  He rented a room in a shack on the bluff above the CPR track near Hastings and Burrard, slightly west of where Vancouver's iconic Marine Building was built twenty-five years later.  He walked down Georgia Street every morning to his job in Wm Watts' shipyard.

The old CPR shack he rented was still there in 1933 when Taylor, rich and grown up, bought the Marine Building and moved his wife and family into the penthouse.  Five years later Taylor was responsible for design and construction of the Lions Gate Bridge, and Taylor Way in West Vancouver is his namesake.

The SS Teco
Taylor's steam vessel was built by Vancouver Ship Yards Ltd in about 1920 for the first of his many companies. Its purpose is not yet clear, but Taylor was already supervising construction of both the Imperial Oil Refinery at IOCO near Port Moody, and development of the "Dolly Varden" silver mine near the Alaska border.

Taylor's rented shack on the bluff below the Marine Building was still there in this 1938 photo from "Lion's Gate"--a biography of both Taylor and his bridge across the First Narrows of Burrard Inlet. D'Acres & Luxton, Talonbooks, 1999, Burnaby BC, Canada. Of Taylor's work at Vancouver Ship Yards Wm Watts wrote in his autobiography: "He was quick to learn and fast in action. Many a time he was called to go and start an engine where others had failed and he always brought home the bacon."

The SS Teco, the largest vessel built by Wm Watts' Vancouver Ship Yard-- for AJT "Fred" Taylor, here tied up at the Balfour-Guthrie dock in Vancouver, 1928. Royal BC Museum and Archives.

        Danae

Below, on the cover of "Diver Magazine", August 1984,  the fifty-four year old Danae, built in Watts' shipyard in 1930.  Vancouver Maritime Museum Library and Archives.

The Danae, built as a comfortable inland-waters excursion yacht in 1930, restored and fitted out for recreational diving.

The Maple Leaf: Luxury Yacht and Halibut Fishboat

Built for a millionaire in 1904 at Watts' Vancouver shipyard, the Maple Leaf is still taking passengers on excursions up and down the coast and as far away as the Galapagos.  The current website of the restored Maple Leaf describes a three-part history: luxury yacht, 60 years of halibut fishing, and finally a return to commercial excursions.

At her launch she was said to be the most expensive pleasure craft on the Pacific Coast.  Watts built her for businessman Alexander Maclaren and she wore sail #1 at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club.

But after little more than a decade, her lead keel and brass were stripped and sold to the government to support Canadian participation in World War I.  By 1916 she had been converted to a halibut schooner, supplying early BC fishing companies such as Gosse & Millerd, and the Canadian Fishing Company in Prince Rupert.

Like the equally sturdy Chief Skugaid, built by Watts in 1913, the Maple Leaf became a mother-ship for dories [see following section], and eventually a halibut longliner.  She was also renamed twice -- as Constance B and later the Parma, fishing halibut up and down the coast as far north as the Bering Sea.  She and the Chief Skugaid likely encountered each other in the ports and inlets of the coast.

The Maple Leaf  continued fishing halibut for nearly sixty years, through the Depression, WWII, the 50's and 60's, until the mid-70's.  In 1980 Brian Falconer and Susan Tweedie recognized her Watts origin, pedigree, and potential.  They set about recreating a luxury vessel in the spirit of William Watts' original creation.  Maple Leaf began commercial eco-adventure cruises in 1986. 

Current owner and president Kevin Smith is one of five ticketed Masters who presently captain the vessel on its various cruises. For a link to the Maple Leaf, check the Friends of the Chief page in the menu at left.

William Watts' MAPLE LEAF, launched 1904 in Coal Harbour as the "most expensive luxury yacht on the Pacific coast." She carried the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club #1 on her mainsail in this photo. Photo courtesy Vancouver Maritime Museum.

William Watts' MAPLE LEAF, renamed PARMA, during the years she sailed the Bering Sea as a halibut schooner and mothership to halibut dories, along with the CHIEF SKUGAID and perhaps a dozen other halibut schooners built by Wm Watts.

William Watts' MAPLE LEAF, re-launched 1986 after 60 years as a halibut fishboat. She fished the same halibut grounds as the CHIEF SKUGAID: up and down the coast, as far north as the Aleutians and the Bering Sea. Photo from Maple Leaf website.

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Emily Leckie Watts and husband William Watts. She was the daughter of Vancouver's first shoe magnate. He built Fraser River Skiffs, the SYREN, the MAPLE LEAF, and the CHIEF SKUGAID.

William Watts, centre, posed with another wealthy client and another graceful hull, at his Georgia Street "Vancouver Ship Yard Company Ltd". No date, but likely circa 1905. Photo courtesy of the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

Watts apparently did repairs on the CASCO, built in San Francisco. It was owned and sailed by Robert Louis Stevenson. According to a note by Watts' grandson, found in the Vancouver Maritime Museum archives, the CASCO was eventually abandoned in Vancouver, then converted for use as a Rum Runner. [See following section.]

Retirement

Watts seemed to attract media attention wherever he went.  Below, a newspaper article from San Diego, California:

The "First Owner" of the Chief Skugaid

Source: "The Pacific Halibut: The Resource and the Fishery," F. Heward Bell. Alaska Northwest Publishing Co. Anchorage, Alaska, 1981.

At age 24, Grier Samuel Starrett, arrived in New Westminster in 1891 from Truro, Nova Scotia. In 1893 he was hired as office manager of the New Westminster Fish Company. The Royal City was by then BC's primary port for halibut, with nearly a million pounds landed.  A year later in 1894, the famous New England Fish Company-- principal halibut supplier for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts-- hired Starratt to manage their Pacific Coast operations.

After steering NEFCo to stunning success, he was hired in 1907 to design, build, and manage a massive fish processing plant in Prince Rupert.  It was the Canadian Fish and Cold Storage Co., later CanFisCo. The facility he built and managed until 1914 was the largest cold storage plant in the world. --Source: "The Pacific Halibut: The Resource and the Fishery," F. Heward Bell, 1981.

Starratt commissioned construction of several wooden halibut schooners from William Watts' Vancouver Ship Yard Co.  The Chief Skugaid was one of them.  So through Canadian Fish and Cold Storage, Grier Starratt was the Chief Skugaid's first owner.

More photos coming.  Comments or questions? Click the "Contact/Comments" button in the menu at left.