The MV Uchuck III has been a welcome sight along Vancouver Island’s west coast for seven decades.
The sturdy wooden cargo ship is a lifeline of food, fuel, lumber and other necessities for logging camps, fish farms and remote communities — and a rustic cruise for launching kayakers and hikers into stretches of pristine wilderness in the north Island.
The sight of the 136-foot Uchuck III’s split cranes and rounded wheelhouse on the horizon is a signal to the lonely corners of the north Island that the outside world has arrived, and people flock to the shorelines and docks in Nootka Sound and Kyuquot Sound.
She looks like a museum piece, but the Uchuck is still working hard. She takes a beating in five-metre seas, heavy rains and hard landings and carries the weight in her holds every month of the year.
The Uchuck has brought in pickup trucks balanced three abreast on her deck, along with ferrying groceries, propane, lube oils, wire, fish feed, building materials, shellfish and furniture. It has refrigeration and freezer units for meat and dairy.
Some of its odder cargo has included beehives, a phone booth and portable toilets — both full and empty — hoisted to and from fishing lodges.
The Uchuck III typically leaves home port in Gold River with about 70 tons of cargo and makes between eight and 12 stops, depending on the route, including the communities of Tahsis, Esperanza, and Kyuquot.
But every May for a couple of weeks, the venerable ship gets a break when she’s pulled out at Point Hope Maritime Shipyard for repairs — near enough for the Times Colonist to get a close look.
“She is in really good condition for an 80-year-old vessel,” says owner Sean Mather, who has helped run the company with his father, Fred, since the 1990s, when the family bought the ship from Dave Young and Walt Winkler.
“My goal is to make her see 100 years. I don’t think I’ll be running her, but I’d like to come aboard for her 100th for sure.”
During the latest maintenance session, the Uchuck needed several of her fir planks replaced above and below the waterline. The cargo hold needed new platforms and flooring, and there were some minor fixes to the walls of the cabin.
The two Cleveland 500 horsepower diesel motors were fine-tuned for one more season before a major replacement project in the fall.
“The only thing that’s disheartening is the engines,” says Mather. “You just can’t get parts for them anymore. They’re more than 80 years old, so we’re just going to baby them through.”
Two new Cummins engines will cost between $600,000 and $700,000, he said.
But Mather said it will be worth the expense to keep the Uchuck operating and serving the northern coast for years to come.
A former minesweeper
The Uchuck III started her life in 1942 as the YMS123, a U.S. Navy minesweeper. About 450 of the vessels were built for the Second World War when steel was at a premium for tanks and battleships and wood was plentiful — and useful in avoiding enemy magnetic mines.
By 1950, however, YMS123 — which was built in Oregon — was a bare hulk. The wiring, engines, instrumentation and all other gear that had any scrap of value had already been removed. The new owners, Barkley Sound Services, were already operating the Uchuck I and the Uchuck II out of Port Alberni to service Barkley Sound, Bamfield and Ucluelet.
Business was booming, and the company needed a larger vessel to carry both passengers and freight.
The conversion of Uchuck III started in 1950 and was completed by 1955, when it was Transport Canada-certified. Most of the ship’s gear was purchased from Capital Iron, which was breaking ships and selling spare parts at the time.
The brass telegraph system, the bell-ring communication link between the wheelhouse and engine room, and the steering came from the Princess Victoria, a River Clyde vessel that had sailed around Cape Horn in 1904.
Mast derricks and lifeboats came from the CPR Princess Mary, cargo winches from the Princess of Alberni, and other bits and pieces from 20 other ships.
The main engines came from a U.S. Navy submarine chaser.
New roads to Bamfield and Ucluelet meant the end of her usefulness in Barkley Sound, but not for other remote coastal areas. The Uchuck arrived in Nootka Sound in 1960 to continue moving passengers and cargo. In 1982, the scheduled run was expanded to include Kyuquot.
Other yard mine sweeper class vessels that were converted around the same time included the Wild Goose, which was the private yacht of Hollywood icon John Wayne; the Marabelle, converted into a resort ship for Oak Bay Marine Group and now owned by developer Ron Coulson of Courtenay; and the Calypso, which served as ocean scientist Jacques Cousteau’s diving vessel and laboratory.
Old-school technology
Hamish Mayhill is working on scaffolding about 20 feet off the ground. The shipwright is threading lines of cotton and then oakum — hemp strands treated with pine tar and linseed oil — into the gaps between new planks on the Uchuck III — a process called recaulking.
Mayhill has replaced several sections of planking on her hull above and below the water line with three-inch-thick fir boards, which fit tight on the inside but open slightly on the exterior of the hull.
He uses a caulking mallet and angled wedge irons of various sizes to tamp the organic materials tightly into the gaps, a tedious process that takes time.
“It’s an inch at a time over and over. It’s millennia-old technology with no upgrades, no shortcuts,” says Mayhill. “This is how you work on wooden boats.”
Mayhill works with a mallet made from lignum vitae, an exceptionally hard wood that reacts well with the steel of the iron wedges. “You want it to be musically sound when you hit the iron … you’re not pulling the hammer back — it actually bounces back and you’re exerting less effort.”
Mayhill chooses his irons carefully to get the maximum packing effect on the planking gaps, starting with cotton and then various thicknesses of oakum.
Mayhill has worked on the Uchuck III for 18 years and has replaced many of her hull planks. He finds the rot by tapping the hull with his mallet, listening for the sound of weakened boards.
“I’ve touched a lot of this boat, a lot,” says Mayhill. “Two to three weeks in May every year, and I’ve gone up to Gold River for some major work where we installed all new decking.
Asked if the Uchuck was a labour of love, the shipwright agrees.
“It’s generally about the work, which I do love, but Sean’s company is a different animal. When you work for someone for 18 years, it feels more like family, so in that way, yes, this is special.
“They’re not going to make another one of these, so keeping it alive is really satisfying.”
Mayhill uses Douglas fir logged in British Columbia that has especially tight grains. The planks are milled to various lengths in three-inch thickness, with the grain of the wood positioned so it does not open at the seams.
The planks are fastened to the oak rib frames of the hull with long carriage bolts.
The hull is then covered in more planks of purple heart wood, also called gum wood, a hardwood sourced from South America. It adds a layer of protection for dock and rock scrapes, log bashing and ice coatings on some ocean bays that can slice the hull, Mayhill says.
“Salt water is the best friend of wood boats, but fresh water is quite the opposite,” says Mayhill, noting that rainwater running off the deck and over the sides promotes fungal growth over time and rots the planks.
“It’s always a little triage when the boat comes out,” he says. “We can see what has to be done or what could wait.
“Up in Gold River, in Nootka Sound, there is incredible rain. Just when you think it can’t rain any harder … it does. So you have to let the water keep shedding off the deck and over the side without penetrating any of the wood.”
Art of the load
The success of the Uchuck III has been in its diversity.
On the one hand, it delivers key supplies to industry — about 50,000 tons worth, including fish food for seven salmon farms operated by Grieg Seafood — which recently sold its B.C. operations — and the rations for logging camps in the Nootka Sound area.
It also carries passengers — tourists and locals, with room for 100 on her scheduled day cruises.
The ship plies Nootka Sound, Esperanza Inlet and Kyuquot Sound.
On Wednesdays and Saturdays, it makes runs to Yuquot (Friendly Cove), where both the Spanish and British made first contact on the ancestral land of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations.
Visitors can see the lighthouse and Catholic Church/Cultural Centre, and hike the beaches and trails.
The cruises allow passengers to witness the day-to-day operation of a working marine vessel as it supplies fish farms, logging camps, resorts and remote villages, most of which have no road access.
“You get a wide range of passengers, which makes every trip interesting,” said Mather. “You really get to see what the coast is made of … it’s not just a tourist boat where you go for a ride.
“You actually stop at different places, and you can ask questions and learn about the coast and who lives and works there.”
Kayakers looking for remote inlets and shores can get there aboard the Uchuck.
The system for offloading supplies is the same one used to wet-launch kayakers along the route. Kayaks with paddlers inside are positioned on a lifting platform on the ship’s deck and lowered to the ocean’s surface.
“We’ve had people from all over the world,” says Mather. “The Dutch and Germans are most awestruck by our scenery, but really, everyone is.
“We had a lady from England who was coming to B.C. and booking our overnight trip. She went to her bank in London to put in a deposit, and the bank teller said to her: ‘You’ll like that [boat trip] … my husband and I did that last year.’ ”
