308_Dave-Howell_Coast-Guard_2010.mp3

otter.ai

8.02.2024

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Speaker 1 0:00
So today I'm, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Dave Howell. He is going to speak on the Canadian Coast Guard search and rescue in the Pacific region, as special focus, of course on Ganges and the Gulf Islands. He's going to give us a brief history and overview of some of the programs, ships search and rescue, and other tasks and practices of the Coast Guard. And he will answer questions at the end. And he has some pictures and some anecdotes to share with us. So Dave, welcome to the Historical Society.

Speaker 2 0:38
Well, as you probably heard, my name is Dave Howell. And I started with the Coast Guard in 1966, at the ripe old age of 18, and retired from the Coast Guard in 2003. At 55. During that career, I was I started my first duty was on an art class cutter, which is about we'll flip one here the art class. Sorry about this Frank and Estonia curve, I guess. That's keep it rollin. The art class boat is the largest discipline the writers use. In our class, there was the writer, the ready and the racer. And they were 98 feet long, 2400 horsepower, and they patrolled the whole DC coast. And they came about with the advent of the Coast Guard, which became an entity in 1962 when the federal government decided that they wanted wanted a marine agency called the Coast Guard, and it took over what was I can't even remember the name of it, it was the Canadian Marine Boys before my time, but it consisted mainly of boy tenders and ice breakers. And when they brought about the Coast Guard, it then took over marine search and rescue from the Air Force. And as well as the other the boy tenders and ice breaking ships. So it dealt with the navigation system for Canada and the search and rescue marine component. Also, that would be of personnel at the rescue center would would also be Coast Guard officers joining the Air Force officers. So the overall lead agency for search and rescue in Canada is the Air Force. And the Coast Guard works with them and provides the marine arm and the Coast Guard itself. Today includes search and rescue, age navigation, marine sciences, fisheries, so it's the the fleet is has grown. But we'll we'll come through that bit by bit along the way. Showing in 62 The Coast Guard the government led police with the art class cutters and they also took over in Vancouver. The Air Force Station that kept the line out and 240 foot up boats. And if we go back a bit now to the more hand this is the more hand this is a 40 foot UTV and that's Air Force boat along with the mallard and they were the the Coast Guard out of Carolina and go to the old bite footprint. And this is the 36 foot wooden lifeboat. And there was one of these in Pacino and Bamfield that's the Bamfield boat but that picture is taken into phenol. And this is a 36 foot self righting motor lifeboat. It was used. It's used pretty much worldwide. That type of boat I know the RM ally ran them. The US Coast Guard ran them and we have them here. Two boats, one in Banfield in the phenol prior to the Coast Guard and when the Coast Guard became an entity they became the Coast Guard lifeboats. They were not very fast about maybe seven knots. You the Canadian boat has had an enclosed wheelhouse that after you in the terminal you had your toll lines, etc. The engineering was directly ahead of the wheelhouse and your survivor Skaven here, you could put a couple of people in the engine room and you could put about Six people jammed into the into the bow, which would be a ride right from hell, if you can imagine bad weather in that rig. Anyway, they were good old boats though, and they did their time. And if you ever get to Port Alberni, that vessel is in on the dock in a museum today. So along with the the advent of the of the Coast Guard and the shifts we work, I'll just touch on it lightly. We used to work seven days on, and that was a 12 hour shift. And then you are correct. You'd work 14 days on a 712 hour days and then 712 hour nights, and then you'd get seven off that averaged out to a 54 hour workweek. And in 1966 I think we get paid twice a month. I think my take home pay was about 112 bucks a check. So that was slim pickins. Anyway, as time progressed, and we come along to about 1969. Frank, if you can move along here a bit, we'll, we'll come to the 1969 the Coast Guard put in an order for three lifeboats, the 104, the 105 and the 106. The 104 was for Battlefield 105 was for Tofino and the 106 was to be a new station that would be just seasonally run and it would be in bull Harbor. And it would be staffed by the men from Kitsilano. So the three new lifeboats, they're 44 foot a little faster than the old one about almost twice as fast. When this book came out, we had Cummins engines and they were fairly powerful. And we could do about 13 to 14 knots. She's really limited GC displacement whole and limited by that by her her waterline length, of course, they're self writing again, in other words, they can cap size and and and keep, you know, pop up. That should be okay. As long as people are strapped on a throne deck or strapped in when they're inside it. The vessel itself is nine separate watertight compartments and it's made from Corten steel quarter inch hole. They're a real tank, a very uncomfortable boat. But if you've got a boat in a hurricane, that will take you there and bring you back again, very, very good. See, see boats, you know, just amazing. And they would tow quite well as well. In their sort of midlife reset. They were having trouble getting parts for the Cummins engines coming to quit making that model of engine and they opted to go to some smaller engines, they put in 3208 cats, which is a very popular marine engine. The result was they they lost a little bit of speed, but the they still carried out their job. Okay. So about the same time and if we can flip through, we might find the hovercraft in the hovercraft and I'm not exactly sure, but I believe it was around 1969 as well. The hovercraft came online, the hovercraft was brought online because of the largely because of the Vancouver Airport being situated right along the seaside. And if you've ever come in to Vancouver airport at low tide, there's about a mile of, of terrain out there that's exposed beach, but it's fairly muddy. And it's you can't drive a vehicle on it. And you can't drive. It's too shallow for the boat. So the problem was, what if a rather large aircraft was to dish out on the flats? How would you get to the people? Well, the answer was the hovercraft. And since then, and hovercraft largely due to a fellow named John McGrath, who was the OAC at the hovercraft station really was an expert with hovercraft and and what due to his work, there were times that the hovercrafts fell on hard times with finances and the government and whatnot. But they kept those machines running long beyond their their forecasted life. And it was largely due to John that there's a hovercraft station still going at Sea Island today. One point they expanded and put in another hovercraft station up at French Creek. But with the advent of the hovercraft just reached the end of their days. And there they were such an expensive machine to replace they decided to replace the French Creek Station with a lifeboat station and so there's a lifeboat and French breakfast. Stay, but the hovercraft station in Vancouver

Speaker 2 10:06
is still in operation. They're not, that's the SRM six. They're not using that paper machine anymore. The machine they're using now is powered by that's powered by an aircraft engine. The new machines are powered by I think they've got VA caps in them. Twin propellers in nozzles which are driven by belt driven from the AF two V eight caps, and the forward to V eight cats run. Big down fans that push air under the vehicle to provide the cushion and the escaping air you'll notice on the new vehicle that has these sort of they look like big stove pipe nozzles with 90 degree elbows and they are up at the bow. The operator can use them as bow thrusters and move his bow port and starboard with the main props providing the thrashed and they'll get the new one is open like a sea truck route down the bow. You can drive you to grab a fire engine on it if you want to do and away it would go up to 60 knots. So it's it's quite a an amazing vehicle really. If you've ever get a chance to go on a hovercraft, you can't help but be amazed with how, where it can go and how it can just cross over. Land see snow ice doesn't matter. One of the things the spin off that the Coast Guard found about the icebreakers This is more back in the East Coast. They found that a hovercraft traveling over ice will break rather thick ice they can break ice two feet thick. If they travel at a certain speed. The hovercraft creates a wave just like all vessels do. And if they travel at the speed, not too fast, so they make making a good following see, it will make a wave under the ice and of course the ice is non flexible and that will actually crack the ice. They can crack ice about two feet thick with a with a hovercraft, quite surprisingly. So with the 40 fours and the new the new station up in bull Harbor, which is a small place small island on hope island boat 23 nautical miles north of Port Hardy come out from Port Hardy hanging left in your place by Glee this channel run up to the top end ugliness channel and you'll come to both harbor where there was a Coast Guard Radio Station and the 44 foot lifeboat. Back to the 40 shore. The 44 foot lifeboat was stationed there and covered that sort of North end for the fishing fleet to the fish camps. That station has now closed down the with the advent of the new 47 they closed the bull harbor and put the lifeboat in in Port Hardy. The Kate caution is in Port Hardy. The new 47 If we could just go to the 47 here while we're on his lifeboat similar to what the cape Cooper's downtown it is 47 feet long. It's a US Coast Guard designed vessel but and the whole and the vessel itself is is pretty much identical to the US 47 You'd have no trouble identifying the difference. Ours are the two vessels. Ours is painted theirs is non painted all aluminum. But the way we set out our vessels in Canada is quite different than the than the US boats because the US Coast Guard has such a huge fleet to fall back on in Canada. Our smaller boats are very quick. They're like Cadillacs compared to the American votes, which are like they're like votes, you know, in the States, a 47 would be assigned to a station and it would be like a bar vote and just do immediately in front of that station. And that's the area you'd go in Canada. This is this boat actually patrols a much larger area. Myself, I've been on that particular boat. I've been 100 miles offshore on search and rescue calls which you would never have the US Coast Guard would never send the 40 sevens out there. Matter of fact, the one the call when I was out there was a involved a collision between the US tuna boat and the Canadian tuna boat. The bridge got into fish and everybody was busy fishing. Nobody was watching where they were going and they ran into each other poked a hole in the bow of the Canadian boat just below the waterline and he was taken on some water so they put in a call and we got going. We could do about 27 knots of this thing. So it didn't take us too much time to go there. Three and a half, three a little over three hours and we were honest He got there about 11 o'clock at night and it was not blowing too bad and it was a bit wet, raining and whatnot, visibility wasn't real good. And just as we arrived, or actually, about five minutes before we arrived, the US Coast Guard showed up with one of their big offshore cutters, which is like a destroyer that's about 280 feet long or something that 300 guys on board or whatever. So I was talking to the US ship, and he said, well see where I'm saying he was gonna stand down and take off and I asked him if he had just gone by for a bit until we check this out. Because I said his he had a lot more his capabilities were much better than mine, if we needed if we needed pumps or anything to to do emergency repairs on this vessel prior to they hadn't heading in with him. So he said, Well, what type of vessel Are you and I said, order type 47. And that was his pregnant silence. And then he said die, you got enough fuel to get home. So anyway, we didn't have enough fuel. And these things are pretty hard on the juice when you're making speed. But if you when you slow them down, they they'll they, they're pretty late on it. So on the trip home, we we ended up just escorting this guy, the fisherman had been hadn't been sitting on his hands while we were there, or before we got there, he had been busy transferring fuel load and his catch. So he was raising the damage part of the vessel as shallow as possible. You'd rigged the collision mat to stop the ingress of water. And so he was able to proceed slowly ahead, and we just stayed with him all night, till we got off of Cape bill, just out of bark and sound. And the Banfield boat came out and then picked up the escort, they still had their 44. In those days, they didn't have their 47 yet. And then they escorted him on to Port Alberni, where the ship was hauled and made his repairs, we went on home. But that was the furthest out that I had ever gone on one of those guys. Anyway, I'm sort of getting ahead of myself here. We're going back now to the 69 and the 19, the early 70s. And I won't be exactly on these dates, but it was it was 6970 out of Kitsilano, the LIC at Kitsilano was a chap named Frank Wilkins. He had been with the boats when they were Air Force boats. And when it became a Coast Guard station, he came with the station. And he basically started up the small boat fleet in Western Canada. And Frank was also we'll talk more about Frank, and because he was the first OYC at Ganges and starting up the station here in town. But in about the 70s. There was a bit of a void, I think the the rider, which was one of the art class boats hadn't yet come online. It was a fisheries boat in those days. And so there was just the ready to racer, the more hand on the mallard. And, and the lifeboats were on the west coast. But it didn't leave much coverage here on the in the Gulf Islands. And during the summer time. We had the two boats in Vancouver one was sort of just a backup. So we decided, well, we're working 12 hour shifts, why don't we send one of the crews, it'll do a daily patrol over to the Gulf Islands. So for a couple of summers, that's basically what we did. And if you were on the Gulf Island patrol, or the x patrol, we used to call it we leave Kitsilano at 10 in the morning, and we wouldn't come back until 10 at night. So it was a lot of running. But you got to you got to cover a lot of ground. We about keep moving and just maybe stop for lunch and we leave from Vancouver and parts out and then head across the Gulf come through either Gabriel paths or part of your paths. Work our way down through the islands. Mike come right down through Samson narrows around the South of Saltspring and then back up through Kamali through Parlier. And back across the Gulf. We leave it there a little bit late coming across the Gulf with the idea that any stragglers hadn't home. We could do a sweet coming back and pick them up along the way. So that was the the X patrol and it worked out pretty good. But it was obvious that that this area needed

Speaker 2 19:41
its own vessel and the Coast Guard and I don't know just how we ended up with it. And I imagine there was there was some there's a political story here somewhere but we ended up with a yacht that had been in the Bahamas that some guy back in Montreal loaned and, and he wanted to sell it and he had a friend that was a knob in Ottawa anyway, the government bought this yacht. And they sent it out here to be the new Coast Guard boat. It wasn't a bad vessel, but it was a little too Yachty and not enough cutlery, you know. So we looked at this thing, and we basically cut the top off it and had a new wheelhouse, designed and installed on this thing for our equipment in the handles the job at hand a little better. This lesson was called the 122. And unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it. But it was the first it came here to the station with Frank Wilkins and chap named Fred Moxie. And they, there was another guy named Philips. He wasn't here very long with a poor chap had a stroke and he was only about 22. And so he left the Coast Guard. Glad to say he made a great recovery and he's all Keynes these days. Might it might tell us anyway, the postcode arrived here with Frank Wilkins, Fred Moxie, Norm Anderson, and then they hired some fellas here, who we will know this day is getting Carl's who is the current OYC down at the station, and heard John Wilcox. Tom Burlison. Gotti Rachael and Tom Shelby was working as a casual here at the station. The 122 and they Oh, there the station was set up down at Centennial Park, right to right by where the kids had the little playground there, you know, and where the bathrooms are, there was a trailer there. And they kept the 122 down, right at the foot of the ramp. She was about in the 42 foot range with the twin, I think they had cats in her 30 toy cats. And she would do about those 15 or 16 knots. And it worked out pretty good. Until one they didn't have a very good radar aboard and Frank had had requested this, this is news that I just got today. From Fred Mach. She sent me this today, Frank had sent or been putting in for this new radar. And then he went away on vacation leaving the station and then Fred marks his hands. And Fred the the this new radar was going to be considerably bigger, bigger antenna and it would be way better, Reagan cetera. So there was some current concerns about the weight of this thing. So they they they they did some stability tests on the boat and the green architects crunched the numbers and, and word came back to Fred that he wasn't to take this boat out in any wind more than 20 knots. Well, that's a heck of a Coast Guard Cutter. They were very there was a lot of concerns that it could tip over. So this was

Unknown Speaker 23:29 Fred's letter here. So maybe I should just read it to you. So anyway,

Speaker 2 23:38
he was working Ganges for a year when Frank went on holidays for six weeks prior to his leave. He agreed I could proceed with getting the new radar set for the 122 as the set we had agreed or was used. The set we had was useless. So I he brought up Tim dumphy Who was the looked after the ships and their repairs and whatnot. At cam worked out of Victoria and and Cameron, this other chap Jared gave he talks about the thing and they figured they better do this stability test and they were worried about the extra weight where the six foot scanner and the next thing they know CeCe Rampell Catherine Rampell calls Fred up with the results and now I'm not used the vessel winds above 20 knots and the Moorhead and there'll be sending the Moorhead to replace the 122. Well, Frank comes back from his vacation to find that they've slipped his vessel and he's back to the old Moorhead built in 1948. You stand outside in the weather. And quite literally, you start out in the weather I've had with the old world and I've had my my pants glaze up with ice I mean, that's 44 running in a little bit of demand at the scissors will get lumpy. But that's out of Tofino. We'll jump around a little here but anyway About us. When Frank came back. The Moorhead arrived, I think a few hours after Frank arrived back from his holidays. And Frank didn't know what was going on yet. So Fred was the harbinger of bad news about their vessel. Anyway, the more hand was backing service and and this is yeah, that's the the mallard which is another 40 foot UTP this the Maori didn't come to the Ganges they brought the more hand over here. Now the Mallard was looks like the same vessel, but the you know, they all look the same, but they all look different. The Mallard was built in impulse Creek in about 1952. And the Moorhead was built in the states in I think, Delaware 1948. The weird thing was they're both to be identical vessels, same power package and everything else. We never got the mallard above 18 knots. But the more hand that things were running real sweet, you get about 21 knots out of her but the you didn't get her for very long, though they had very long shafts that were exposed and they were they would get subjected to getting little bends in the shafts or from hitting driftwood, etc. And if they got any vibration of your speed would go down considerably. But that was the more when we first got the more and she didn't have the funnel. She had wet exhaust, externally, no motors just straight out there quite loud. But the problem was is they sometimes develop cracks in the in the exhaust pipes inside the vessel and it caused the vessel to take on more than one occasion they would sink at the dock. So as you can see, that's yours truly up there packing the outboard away when when I was in my younger days, but we would get we've lifted out of the water and the young guys get going on the on the diesel engines, we usually have them running again in about two hours, the the engines and we just run them up and get them going again and the electronics were a bigger problem, they'd have to be stripped out and replaced. But they were quite a you know, an amazing vessel these these big windows. They were just held in with like a rubber with you put the wind the wind and the rubber in. And then there was a little strip that went in and held it well. One of the cats got down I don't think he's in that picture. But anyway, he got down off of San heads on a call one night, and he stuck his bow into some into a big wave and it puts this and that of course flooded credit flooding the bow and it got so much water in the boat lifted his stern up and he is props for coming out of the water. But he managed to get the boat swung around with the stern to the sea. And they got their salvage pump out and they pump the water out and he made it up to Steve Austin where were then we they rigged that piece of plywood over to bring it home. But after that we we replaced these windows with a piece of aluminum that was riveted onto onto the cabin, and then just a small window with much heavier glass in it right to reduce the the size of the windows. But the other problem was this these things with these long shafts and they were getting pretty old to the where the strap was welded onto the hole would would vibrate and it would get metal fatigue and it would get a crack that would build around it and ride your steamin if the pressure would be up on it, and it never bothered as much, but then when you came home and you shut the boat off and everything's looking hunky dory, and the weight of the strop and the strap would sag down and it would open that crack up and then it would flood that ask compartment well the whole deck was only two inches above the waterline anyway so it didn't take very long before he started getting water on the deck and then it would crush the deck and if it got another inch or so up it was certainly down flood into the engine compartment. The next thing you know you'd be having your coffee and you'd hear these lines snapping and popping me what's going on. You'd look out in the books and at the bottom. It wasn't a nice feeling. So anyway, that was the the 40 footers. The Morgan did her last day. That's that's up in how sounds were shut down for the Vancouver Sun. This is the fella who was driving the boat when the windows got punched out not to be thrown Lavery. Anyway, this would be 1967 I guess. But they were you know they they did their stuff. Now this the 47 same as the cape Cooper. This is the Cape St. James and this then Cox bail near Tofino And the boys are in there just doing some training. The boat is designed for this kind of stuff. And I can't begin to tell you what a great sea boat this boat is. It's an amazing vessel. And you can see how she's going through this kind of stuff that she's really in her element there. The now here's here's a US 47. And that's if you don't take the sea right, he can still end upside down and but she'll pop right back up again. And everybody's tied on the way to go. So they're there. They are a terrific boat. That being said, you know, in in the three years I was running them on the West Coast. I never laid her on her ear until one time I was coming bringing the boat from Bamfield back to Pat Bay. And I just come through down below oak Bay and came out into harrow straight. And it was a pretty good seat coming up from down south and, and I broached her and she went over on her ear and was quite surprised because you would have never, I don't know, run on these boats on the inside and never thought we'd get the sea conditions to do that kind of stuff. But they're, they're a great sea boat. So getting back to the tail here. So when those see the we're coming back to to Saltspring island now and they've got the station set up downtown, but it's a very temporary deal. And there was talk being given as to, to where where we're going to you know, we wanted a permanent station and where it was to be. And largely this was the the discussions on this matter were led by by Frank Wilkins. And there was some consideration there was an old dock down a Wilbury bay that they thought we might pick up across the property and well very Bay and put the station out there, it would be kind of quicker to get out into the islands, and it would be sort of out of town and blah, blah, blah. But it was decided that it would actually be better for the Coast Guard for it to have the exposure of having the station in town. And the storage shed was available on the on the dock downtown. And so they decided to go that road and that's how the station evolved to be where it is today. That picture the former picture was taken. That's under pretty much under first Narrows and it's he's doing pretty good there it was born but 45 against that day. With an ebb tide with the current running out and the wind coming in, it could get quite rough from first Narrows and that that whole Riptide would run from first hours right out to point Atkinson. Anyway, that's that's the the more hand in some heavier weather. The guy driving it, there's a guy named Rick Tolonen who spent some time here at Salt Spring as well as the number two Coxon.

Speaker 2 33:29
Anyway so they so they, that's what they looked at Robert Bay, but they they ended up sticking with the station here. And along about this time. We're getting now into the early 80s They decided that I mean, the more him in the Malik we're getting pretty old and long in the tooth. And obviously we were having a lot of metal fatigue problems and they decided that they wanted to go to a to a new, more modern vessel. And again, Frank led the charge on this one and and largely I think due to his footwork although my position that Coast Guard I had not wasn't good on the talks and whatnot. But I do believe it was largely due to Frank's efforts that we ended up with the 41. Now the 41 foot which is like the skewer Frank if you can zoom us on that one. Yeah, there's the skewer there. Now the skewer. And again, it's a it's an American design boat. But quite different with the Canadian set inside it's it's fitted out with much higher grade and more equipment than say the US one is we don't have the guns. They load up with, with, with weapons on their vessels that anyway are the 41. The first 41 that we got out here they gave it a number but we all hated have numbers on our boats, we I think it was the 123. But we gave it a name, the Osprey, which was an official, but was what we all use. And the first 41 was built back in Ontario. And we did our own resets in those days, where the boat would be hauled up onto the dock at Kitsilano. And we would work on it and we became when we started the boat on the water and we're scraping the paint and we're looking at the welds and stuff. We became alarmed at some of these welds they didn't look too good to us, but I mean, what are we We're disappointed, seeming you know. So we, we complained that the powers that be and and our OYC at the time was was very supportive of us. Although the fleet engineer didn't seem to be too, too concerned with it. However, we persevered. And eventually they agreed to, to have somebody come in X ray, these holes, these welds, and at the end of the day, they found that this is a quote. If 10% of the welds were as poor as 90%, he would still pass this boat. But he said This boat has 10% of its welds, or no correction has 90% of its welds that are only up to 10% strength. So with that the boat was taken out of service, it was taken to a yard being aluminum, they couldn't just grind it out, like you would with a steel haul. Aluminum is very sensitive to contaminants in when they're going to reweld it and so the the welds had to be milled out. So it was quite expensive, then they had to cut each weld and then they had to reweld it again. Which about the time they got this finished and the boat running again was it wasn't long after that, that the they put in the order for three new 40 ones and they were to be built in this coast built by a shipyard called Map to moto Maximo shipyard in which is on the Dalton Highway, just up from second narrows in Burrard Inlet and the Matsumoto pioneered using aluminum for for for vessels. And that's basically worldwide, not to motor pioneered that. The first vessel they made they didn't know about types of aluminum etc. And they they did their workmanship is very good. But the the the alloy was the wrong alloy. And they had some serious problems. They basically had to build the guy a new boat, but they got through that. And when they built us the the the mallard, the Skilar and the Osprey which were launched in in the spring of 86. Just before Expo, the we were it was we're just amazed at the difference between the two boats, which were supposed to be the same vessels just the quality was so much better. And we never did have really any problems with the with the construction of the of the new 40 ones. So they work in Vancouver, the three vessels worked in Vancouver. During Expo one of the vessels was was assigned to what we call the the expo patrol. And then the other two vessels worked out of the station as as usual. The at the end of Expo 86 the steerer was set to to Saltspring the Ganges to replace the more hand which was stood down and taken out of service and retired. And so that brought us to the 41 footer here on Saltspring. And in 86 It wasn't too long after that in 88 Frank Wilkins retired and and I was given the opportunity to come over here and replace Frank which which I did the I just want to make sure I haven't left up something I wanted to touch on here before I carry on. One of the things about running the Coast Guard in the Gulf Islands is it's it's critical big area for one station, especially if we look at the number of islands and the the, the miles of shoreline. And when you get doing a search in such a big area with one vessel, and there's many passageways, and you don't always have the best of information, I, somebody's missing, they're in the Gulf Islands. Well, okay, so that's a few 1000 square miles or whatever. Anyway, To this end, when Frank came to, to the islands, one of the things he was tasked with, and indeed, when I came here, it was written into my directives that we were to, to encourage and help and assist the development of an active observatory that could, could work with us and be effective. And in this area, the this is sort of, in rough southern British Columbia. There wasn't really an exhilarate at that time, and there was, there was a couple of guys that that really went out of themselves. That one was a chap named horse Klein, and another and he ran a vessel called the queen of storm. And there was another fella called Phil Mattie, who, who was out on passage Island, and I forget the name of his boat. But both of these guys, they were they were pretty gung ho fellas, and they both both saw themselves as being in competition with the Coast Guard, which was a bit of a problem because mandated by the Canadian government, the Coast Guard was the lead agency in search and rescue. And that that tasking is not up for debate. While these guys didn't, much like that, they saw this as coming in and crowding into their territory. But putting, putting the politics aside, if if you're in the water, and you're injured, you don't care if it's a red boat that comes in get your if it's, if it's horse playing in his little Boston Whaler, that scoots out, you'll just be damn happy that somebody comes for it. So when I came here, and I'd heard all these stories about, about horses, and how he and horse always got the ear of the media, which would sort of you get kind of worried that you're going to end up looking like the horse's ass sort of a thing out there. But anyway, I remember when I came over, and I was talking to my boss in Vancouver about horse and how I should handle this whole thing. And he said, Just remember, Davey said, when you get out there, make sure you use them. You know, whenever there's an incident, the horse wants to come out on it, then use horse, but give him a job to do. And when he finishes that job, give him an A just keep him busy. And then you're using them, he'll help you that's how it works, you know, so, and it was real good advice. And it worked. Horse though, was pretty much at the end of his career at that time. And he he ran into a few problems. Well, with with the advent of the of the exhilaration. Horse and Phil both became leaders in the exemplary. And that worked fine until the auxilary, which is an organization that elects its leaders. They elected somebody else's leader

Speaker 2 43:29
that didn't sit well with horse well with Phil for that matters. But basically evolved out of that. It there was some not pleasant things that took place there. But in the end, the auxilary started to evolve more. But it's within the auxilary and the Zoe's mandate is is to provide Volunteer Rescue Service and to promote public boating safety throughout the Pacific region. And they they work to that to this day, both inland on the lakes have on the coast and the BC I'll get myself into ahead of myself here where I'm talking but the the the Coast Guard camp with with what we have here in in on Ganges, we couldn't do this job without an effective observatory. And the importance of them can't be underestimated. That being said, there's a chronic problem that always haunted me in the Coast Guard. And I imagine that's to this day, and that is that the Coast Guard if you imagine yourself as you're a seaman in the station here, and and I say okay, we're going to be going out with the jewelry tonight. We're going to be teaching them this or that or the other thing. And in your mind, you're going, Whoa, so what's the deal? If you're teaching them to do your job, and then they're going to volunteer to do your job for nothing? It's kind of hard to compete with that. And you can imagine, whatever jobs or careers you have in your life, if somebody came along and said, Well, you know, I'll do your job, I'll do it for nothing. You know, it kind of makes it hard to compete with. And that's always been sort of an ongoing problem that when dealing with within the Coast Guard itself and how the men felt towards the exhilarate. And there's even some justification there that there was a time at this very station, when there was some talk. The first time the talk came about, well, you know, Frank's got that jewelry working pretty good. Why don't we move the Coast Guard boat to Victoria, and we'll let the jewelry run this area. And they put it to the exhilarate. And some of the observers thought, yeah, this will work. But most of the guys that figured it was a good idea Weren't they were the guys that were sort of handling the the office stuff for the exemplary and the operational crews, they they said, Hey, I'm not here to take somebody's job. And they quit. All of a sudden, they didn't have an exhibit here. And the boat couldn't go. So the Coast Guard station had to remain here. Well, history kind of has a funny way of repeating itself. And in my term here, as Oh, I see at the station, that first event took place when Frank was here. But when I was here, and this would have been in around I'm thinking 99. That it was put forward again, that you know, we don't and they still don't have a primary coastguard SAR station in Victoria. They have an exotic station out of Victoria. But there's no primary SAR station there. And there's some people that politically wise, they think that there should be a station there. And they may be well, right. But my argument is, if they want one there, then go get a boat and put one there, but don't do it at the expense of this station. And my argument to keep the station here was the most heavily traveled air route in Canada is between Victoria and Vancouver on commercial flights. And we're right under it. I would guess that the most heavily trafficked passenger ocean route in Canada is this Washington to Swartz Bay route, BC Ferries and it's one of the most heavily traveled in the world. And it comes right through our area. And incidentally, the ferry routes that are going from the mainland to Vancouver Island cross some of the busiest shipping lanes at right angles, they don't go with it, they cross it and they go through active paths which is a choke point with high currents and Deb tides and rip tides etc etc. And take your your primary SAR unit that is stationed within a few minutes of that at the Pass area, or if you want within the area that these ships travel at these aircraft travel in and also which is one of the primary cruising grounds for for treasurer voters that people come from all over the world to charter vessels to go sailing and this is the playground and then to move this station down to Victoria never did make sense to me. And I made that loud and clear that for all my complaining about this idea and why it was a poor idea. I felt like I was talking to the wall. However, the head of the Coast Guard at the time Carrie Tabb organized a town hall meeting here at the high school. And we're where the general public was invited to come and it was open to one and all. Unfortunately, the different Coast Guard Auxiliary units that had that we've been working with over the years to train up. They all showed up and were represented at that meeting. And once again, the jury stood up at that meeting and this spot Up to the spoke to Terry cabs and the Coast Guard and made the statement that if they felt that they could replace this Coast Guard station with exemplary people that they were going to resign in mass. And they won't have a state, a Coast Guard Auxiliary on Saltspring. They won't have one in May in in in Maple Bay, and they won't have one in Sydney and they won't have one. Just about humaneness. Or what's the down, Lady Smith, they won't have one in lady Smith, they won't have one in the Gulf Islands at all. So once again, the Coast Guard station remained on Ganges, not because of what my advice was, but because the Coast Guard Auxiliary, had stood up and said, we're not doing it. And that point was very important to me, when I was talking to my crew man about, you know, we were going to turn to and train these fellas. And they were always afraid that we're training them to do their job. But now I could say to them, you got your job, because they stood up for you. And so I want you guys if, at the end of this talk, if you go away with nothing else, always remember that this idea about moving coastguard stations is liable to surface again sometime in the future. And, and if you want to Coast Guard station here, you got to fight for it, I think because and in all fairness to the Coast Guard. It's not a vindictive thing that they're about, you know, the thing is, is they'll never have enough boats to do put stations where they want them. And so they have to look at them periodically and say Do we have our, our, our, our boats in the right places. And if they don't, it's an obligation they have theirs, to put them where they should be. But for me, I can't imagine a better place to have a coastguard station and again geez, given the roots of the BC Ferries, the air traffic the the the pleasure craft that come here from all over the world uprooted these waters, this is the place it should be. And I'm convinced of it that it's a it's the right place for it to be so I think it's quite defensible. But I think it's also the it'll probably fall back on the exhilarate to save it again if it ever comes because the only way they can do it is if the jewelry agrees to to run it without us and so that was sort of my feeling on the jewelry there. Anyway, getting back to our story of the Coast Guard here on the island in the late 8889 area and I'm not quite sure the exact date but we came to what for me was my worst time and in the Coast Guard and that was we have strike and you know when you're when you're working in into search and rescue and helping people that are in distress, etc and now you're faced with your you're on strike Well, you know, they don't match up very well do they. And in the end we went on strike with the with the fleet, which was the Coast Guard fleet across Canada was on strike. But basically it was to do with wages.

Speaker 2 53:33
And then the search and rescue part of this strike. This whole thing sets or bad with us that we agreed that that there was a distress when we met in the boats and gloat. Now looking at it from the management side. The only reason that they brought the Coast Guard is so they got boots on the ground on search and rescue. And so now they didn't have to pay us at all. But we'll still go to the search and rescue. So for them it was a good deal. And I bet I shouldn't make light of it. I'm sure it was a very uncomfortable time for them as well. These These people were our friends, our captains, some of them we'd sailed with. We were still a Coxon run organization as far as the small boats went, which meant that as the OYC I wasn't a ticketed master. I was I was charged by the Coast Guard to run this vessel. But I didn't have a Canadian seafaring ticket and so are the captains and whatnot. From the continent down we were in the same we were on the union we are on the out where's the all the ships officers were with the government sort of a thing with the with a different union. And, and it was it was a dreadful time. But no it wasn't the strike was one eventually but it wasn't one by by us being out there. But of course, the way these things run we couldn't very well not be out. It was one that the strike was won by the winter coming on back east, and the ice breakers not sailing, and the St. Lawrence Seaway freezing up, and deep sea ships being stuck in the ice in the lakes, and not being able to get out to the open ocean. And the Americans saying to the Canadian government, Hey, fellas, you've got an international agreement here. And your agreement is to keep this section of the Seaway open. Don't we're not interested in strikes or whatever you you've got to do this. And, you know, the government of course, all of a sudden is faced with, with what its obligations were, and realized that the cost of paying a few seamen what we were asking for was still less than what was being made by the commercial fleets. And that we did get our arrays. We noticed in the data arrays, then they froze our weight, outrageous. And we wouldn't get another race for another 10 years. So if you were approaching retirement, it was a great time to retire, you get your arrays, you get your back pay, you'd retire. And then you got to your cola clause would kick in. And as cost of living went up over the next eight to 10 years, you got your raise every year being a retired Coast Guardsmen. But at the end of eight years, you're making more than the guy that was still doing the job, which was kind of a strange way to look at it. But anyway, that's that was how that one went down. But the strike for me in my career, it wasn't, it wasn't a pleasant, pleasant experience. And I was glad to see the end of it. That's it overall, as far as I really did enjoy my, my time in the Coast Guard and my career. But in about 1995 The Coast Guard, which had been operating under Transport Canada, it was restructured and brought into the DFO fleet while the fleets were were amalgamated really, we now which instead of answering to transport, we were to answer the DFO. And all of the DFO fleet, like the fisheries fleet in the science fleet, which had always been in under Department of Fisheries and Oceans, they moved into a greater Coast Guard fleet and were picked on the Coast Guard colors. This had its warts. The way the men were treated under Transport Canada was probably better than the way the EPO history of treating their men were DFO would come in from a trip and lay the crew off. Where's the Coast Guard, if you've worked in the Coast Guard, you you had your job, you know, if the ship didn't say and you still had your job, you would be put to work doing maintenance work or something. But so there were some problems. And there were some differences too. I mean, some of the DFO people were armed, you know, they were cops. And none of the Coast Guard guys were. So there was a immediately all the vessels got gun lockers, put a board. And there was a list put together for Well, who's going to get guns are separate? Well, they're going to all the Caucasians and all ICS get a gun. And we're all put on a list that we shouldn't need stepped back to Regina, to the police academy, that RCMP Academy and we'd be taught weapons and cetera, et cetera. While they're not they weren't sure about that was, well, maybe that they couldn't do that. So we were at one meeting, I remember, there was all the Masters and the mates and the corruptions and the ICS. Right, this meeting. And so Terry tab was discussing this problem about well, who who does get the gun? You know, who gets done? It doesn't. So I said, Terry, this isn't that tough. I said, you know, just ask everybody who wants guns, put up your hand. And there were some hands went up, and that I couldn't carry said now take a note of who put up their hands for the guns and who didn't get the guns, the ones that didn't put up their hands. Anyway, I didn't get the gun, which suited me. But when I went to the funeral, the fellow that was working opposite me. He had his background had been with Fisheries and Oceans. He had been hit back around a bit on a fisheries patrol vessel, and he did have a gun. So he kept his gun. And when he came to work, he was still a fish cop although he didn't pursue that ended his training, but he was armed. And he had, and he got an extra 90 bucks a month, which I didn't get. But there you go, guns in the Coast Guard. So we say we talked about that. So anyway, that's pretty much brought us up to now. And the fleet here, there's, there's some pictures here on the wallet that if you see anything there that you want to elaborate upon, I'll be glad to also I sort of talked about about the Coast Guard and where, how and why etc. But I imagine that some of you may be interested in in, in hearing about some incidents, incidences. And if you're not too bored, I can, I can fill you in on a couple of rows that some of the ones that I've got three in particular that I'd be prepared to talk about, if you want to hear them. So shall I go on? Okay. Well, one of the, one of the, to get back to this, this argument about keeping the station here. And I had been pointing out to one of the chaps at the rescue center, who was who is quite Pro, moving the station to Victoria. And I was talking to him about active past and the number of ships and etc, etc. And, you know, if we had a major incident, you won't have a vessel here. Oh, Dave, this is a quote or days, but there's a major incident involving a major vessel, your little 40 foot boats not going to do anything. You won't be involved in that other than that, maybe just a runner, you know? I said, Okay, well, you know, cutting off at the knees. Well, isn't nice how things have a way of happening wasn't Oh, couldn't have been two months later. And there was a ship, a deep sea ship, anchored up north of Cooper Island, or Thetis Island, pardon me, anchored up north of Thetis Island. And it was the the home Ireland, Norway, Norwegian company, but I don't believe it was Norwegian flag. Anyway, they had a fire, the ship is on fire. And it started off, they got a fire going. And one of their lounges in the main superstructure. And they had not put out a word on it. They've been trying to deal with it themselves. And they weren't very successful. So they finally called up the Coast Guard Radio Station, we got a fire going here. And we're we can't get control of it. So next thing, you know, that little state that little 40 foot boat that would never be tasked with anything. If anything, any of these major ships ever had a problem. The phone rings down here thinks he sits on fire days you better get up there and get do what you're gonna do, you know. So we went now, it was summertime and I had a lot of guys away on vacation. So I had in my casual relief people

Speaker 2 1:03:22
consistently Roland Campbell, who now is full time co starred. And another chap called the payment natural payment was a refugee from Iran, who his specialty was really first aid payment was a great first first aid man, great medical man. And he to this day is he's not in the Coast Guard now but he's he's with BC ambulance imagine he's doing a great job. So anyways, we're heading up a trip to Maui. And we don't know, we haven't been taught very much. And we just have vision to this thing is on fire. And you know, you are a 40 foot 41 foot boat, and you're gonna go deal with this deep sea ship and just so it's sort of like, you know, you're gonna go on stage and you get a little bit of stage fright. Because how are you going to do this and you're trying to decide and kind of make a plan. And of course the boys there they're all a little twisty Twitch, too, because they're, they're gonna be the ones on the pointy end of this deck. And I remember rollin turned to me and and at one point when we got up there, we were getting pretty close. And I said, Okay, roll and go get your get ready. Bring in a sticky alongside the sand. Yep, there. He says. Davey says, I gotta tell you, he says, You know, I just had my basic firefighting, he says, and I don't feel very confident in tackling this thing. And I said, I said rolling by said you got to listen to me very carefully, you're not being put on that ship to fight the fire. You're going on that ship to find out what the situation is, and what we need to fight the fire. And what we can do to help those those guys, you know, find go find the chief engineer, the first mate or the master any one of those three people and start talking to him and give me some feedback and find out I need to know what the situation is. So lowly heads up there with the with the radio and starts filling me in. But you know, it worked out to be a pretty major incident and we ended up having the Big Air Force Labrador helicopter sitting on the bottom of the ship in case of to be an ambulance. We had the two hovercrafts I had the queen of newest minster steamed up Kamali, right up north of Davis Cooper Island, I have three deep sea tubs. I have a number of smaller tubs I had 20 firefighters from from Cooper and North oyster right, just above the yellow point there. They just weren't there yet. And fortunately, for us all, we had the Harbormaster and the MIMO had been following our radio traffic. And he took it upon himself to contact an IMO Fire Department. And they put together a team of really top notch firefighters guys that have been trained to penetrate big buildings and this sort of thing. And he came down with about eight of these top notch guys to have on the harbour Master's boat, which we are really out of the nine Mo's area and he came down and gave me a call when he got quite close and was glad to see them because you got to understand that the the firefighters that we had were all volunteers and who had been trained to to fight house fires and largely trained to get the people out and if you cannot the fire down fine, but the main thing is to get the people out but we're sitting here with this deep sea ship that's starting to really light up. And those guys the Nanaimo Fire Department saved the day for for us all really. And at the end of the day. They got the fire out, and then they had to take off and then the volunteers went in and cool things down. It got pretty hot in there one whole deck about ship was burnt out with a deck saw above all warping and starting to light up in the next deck up because the steel plates start getting so hot, but the fire got out and nobody got injured. And I was kind of glad to write that report. GRCC make sure that guy got the report about how the boat was gonna get tasked if anything major happened. Carried out so that was sort of a good one I felt I felt. Another one that I like to talk about is Bob Lord, and you might have heard about Bob. Bob Lord. He fell off BC ferry going through active paths. It was in the fall, we had been having real nice warm days and cool nights. Anyway, Bob had been with a picnic with his family in the Sydney area and then he had to travel over to the mainland and he had been stung all day. And I guess he got He figures he got a bit of sunstroke or something. But anyway, he got on the ferry. And he was down in his vehicle, a little pickup truck. He wasn't feeling very good. Then he got sick. And then he he wanted to. He didn't want to get sick on the ship. And so he went to the stern of the ship and leaned over to try to throw up off the side of the ship and he fell over. This is 11 o'clock at night and he comes to the surface and there's the ferry steaming away. Nobody's seen him. Then we came to a real glitch. The third gets over to to Swanson and off loads and there's this little truck down on the car deck. Where's the driver? Well, then the ferry reported the the this is a missing person to the RCMP who felt that he went home with somebody else or something i this part really boggles me but anyway, but nobody ever called the rescue center. And I don't know who finally called the rescue center but finally somebody called the rescue center and decided this is a marine problem. Because my phone rang at five in the morning and they said we think we've lost somebody off of BC Ferries and I'm going to BC Ferries running at five in the morning what time The ferry sale. Well the ferry was the last boat out of out of Victoria at 11 o'clock. Well, what am I getting the call for now? I mean, because as far as I was concerned, I was just looking for dead men now. And anyway, off we went and the hovercraft, they decided that they would, they would cover from Slauson to active paths, and we would do active paths to Swartz Bay. Well, in my mind's eye, if this guy is still in the water, he's, he's, he's gone. But he might have been able to swim ashore. So really, I want to focus on the shorelines of all the islands. This guy could be you might have made it to the beach. So we're researching all the shorelines. And then as we traveled to the next island, if we come across a timeline, we're going to search in the timeline, because any bits of debris and flotsam always end up in the sidelines. So that's what we're doing. And we we've covered a number of these, and we're now getting down towards Portland Island at way when and now it's about Oh 7:30am or so. And this Yank gets on the radio of Seattle, and we hear him on channel 16. And he's saying, there's a guy out here in the water, and the swim and we're just going over to him. And so anyway, and he's down near Orcas Island. So where they went over and, and then and what Chris were all here's on this one, and then he this guy who turns out to be an off duty cop from Bellingham. And he's reporting this to Seattle RCC and he says, We've got this guy, he says he's a Canadian, his name's Bob, Lord. Well, so we try to break in. Well, this this American, I guess, I didn't know why. She'd be talking to the Canadian Coast Guard. But anyway, the American coast guard said, look, there's a Canadian Coast Guard book trying to work it talk to him. So then he answered us. And then sure enough, it's it's our guy, our subject, Bob Lord. And he's picked them up and he shoved him in a in a sleeping bag. And and he's, so I said, Well, where where was he? And he's more south of east point, you know? And I said, Well, how fast is your boat, he says, it's about 30 knots. And I says, Well, head for turning point at 30 knots. And we're, we'll do 27 knots from here. And we'll be heading that way. So it will be coming together at about 57 knots. So we should be together pretty quick. And at the same time is this the US Coast Guard launched a helicopter from Port Angeles. And while we're going my crew, which was Ian, Kyle and Danny Kunal blah, we're getting all our, our reheat equipment ready. And the our boats have excellent reheating capabilities better than some hospitals. And we have, we really done a lot of study on how to bring help people from hypothermia. And

Speaker 2 1:13:15
we can reheat people, we have a device that the put doesn't breathe hot, moist air right into their lungs, and we heat them from the inside out. This prevents a thing called after drop, which is the biggest danger when you're reheating people, or treating people with hypothermia. Anyway, and we had just earlier this week, we had had perhaps a worst incident where we had lost a number of people. And Danny was new man on the on the boat. And so his This is his first real shift. And he's just finished one major incident where there was a lot of death involved. And of course, his he was one of the the caregivers and medical people involved in that incident. And now here we are again, and we've got this other guy so that he's going to this thing with a vengeance that this guy isn't going to, he's going to make it so. So we get this guy aboard the boat and Dan's got heat packs and this reheater going and and he's talking to Bob Lord and Bob is in remarkable condition really. But he had a couple of things going for him. There was warm water coming out of the interior of the province, with the Fraser River and that one water is floating on the surface. There's also warm water the way the tides were. There was warm water coming off the sand for boundary Bay and Matt had floated out in the strange Strait of Georgia and and he got into this, some of this warmer water and we figured that that really played a big part. And he took a he had a little windbreaker on one of those nylon shells, and he had made like water wings out of this thing tied the sleeves and he would flip it up and get some air and then he would paddle with this thing. See? And he would he would come paddling and, and he'd say he only had to do 100 strokes. When he got to that 100, he said, had to do 100 more strokes. And he just got through the whole night doing this, and eventually got picked up. We got him up to Sydney, and the ambulance got down there. And like I said, with little frosty that morning, and they, they were expecting this guy at death's door, and they got on the boat and, and he's pink and rosy and they were quite impressed. We've kept the heat treat on him. II and went with the ambulance, right to the hospital, the emergency at the hospital, they were so impressed with that they wanted us to supply them information where they can get this heat treating device for their own good. Boy, I missed the step there. So when the three units asked the the American boat and the helicopter, we're all about to converge. At that point. It was pretty sure that our patient was going to go with the helicopter, but the helicopter had a malfunction, just as it was crossing. That American first American island south of us here, so the steward, the big one. Roads Harbor, what's the name of that? sidewalk? Yeah, so just he's going across there, he gets a light comes on. And he has to do an emergency landing. So he doesn't make it. But anyway, Bob did make it and and it was the lesson there, I think for anybody is don't give up. You know, Bob didn't give up. And that's why he made it. So if you're ever in those kinds of situations, if you really want to survive, survivors don't give up. And so is there any questions that anybody has about the Coast Guard or something I can, I can only speak from my self I can't speak for the Coast Guard anymore. The skewer now I believe she's either I think she's on the out of the water down in Pat Bay. And the other two boats, the mallard will know the mallard colonies. They kept one of them. And I think they kept one in service, which is the Osprey in Vancouver. And the steer I think they kept as a backup boat for her, which is she's kept out of the water. So if they have a problem, they can just watch one and pick the other one out. The Mallard I think was taken out of service. The Mallard was the Powell river boat. The three boats were built at the same time. But in Powell River. They're running a 47. Now, the crow strikers decided to go to the one class of boat. And the 47 is certainly a great vote. It's it's there's a few things that the skewer was probably better for her configuration. But she certainly doesn't have the capability to go in the weather that the 4747 will go in any way there is and be safe doing it

Speaker 2 1:18:23
in Tofino Yes, that's right. That was the King James. Yeah, that's the one that was that. You did on that one. Yeah, it was a little story about that. That day, they were that they were in Cox Bay, and they were just training and there happened to be a professional photographer who was on the shore and he took those pictures. And he he dropped by the station later on. And he he gave them to the to the lads, which was kind of nice. Because he didn't have to, and he just asked if we don't use them on a commercial basis, because that's how he makes his living. But oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:05
I think I'll break in David. Yeah. Thank you very much for your your thoughts this afternoon and you're welding you're going to be here to have coffee with this and anybody else. Any other comments or questions? You're welcome to come up and share them with Dave. He's very good, very informative. I'm glad you got here. And thanks very much for taking the time to share.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:31
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