3 minute read
Tideline
Boat and Skiff Have Family Connection
BY MARINA SACHT
The Ladysmith Maritime Society’s Heritage Boat Restoration Group is working on a skiff that has close ties to the Dorothy, the 30-foot sailboat they restored to worldwide accolades.
Coast Salish Master Carver John Marston donated the skiff to the BC Maritime Museum, where it will become the tender for the Dorothy once the restoration is complete this spring.
The skiff was built by the son of the man who built Dorothy’s original skiff in 1895 and is in remarkable condition for its age. It will be ready in the spring to take to the water as Dorothy’s tender.
Marston came across the skiff about seven years ago. “I love old wooden boats and had been searching out an old lapstrake as a project, or if only to preserve it for the future.” These historical wooden boats are visual representations of the skills and craftsmanship found throughout the coast, he said.
“I view each one as the few historical remnants left from the early massive old-growth logging during the time of wooden boat construction.”
Marston says the preservation of old dugouts has been very important work. The era in which both types of watercraft dominated the waterways began to diminish around the same time. This often leads to connections: where there might be an old wooden row boat, there will often be a dugout.
Marston was given the skiff by a family in Saanich who had owned it since 1940. It was built sometime between 1915 and 1930 by a Victoria boatbuilder, David Thomas Jones, on the same moulds as Dorothy’s original skiff, which was built by his father, Thomas Compton Jones, in 1895, at their shop in Victoria. The skiff includes its original spoon oars with copper tips. The father and son built a wide range of craft including rowboats, racing yachts, sealing schooners and power launches.
“Father and son had built these two boats at different parts of their lives, and it was a perfect opportunity for the history of boatbuilding to make this connection and unite the sailboat and skiff I’m happy to have played a small part,” says Marston, who enjoys visiting the LMS shop and seeing the boats being worked on. “The Dorothy is an absolutely stunning boat. The work that has been done so far is an inspiration. The detail and foresight of preservation is a lasting legacy for everyone to enjoy and marvel at.”
