The Report is in on a Veritable Timeline
of Marine and Naval Heritage!
Fourteen site forms have been filed with the BC Archaeology Branch, and a comprehensive status report of the vessels comprising this impressive site on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Canada has been completed. Plans are underway for additional work in April 2012 but perhaps of greatest importance, co-operative trips between the UASBC and INA, have become a reality. View the full Status Report (PDF 6MB)
Background
In March 2011 local historian Rick James and INA Research Associate John Pollack, led a 9-person trip to the Royston Breakwater on eastern Vancouver Island, one of the most diverse and as yet unstudied ship graveyard sites on the west coast of North America. Six members of the Underwater Archaeological Society of BC (a 160-member society in existence for three decades) joined three INA members, to make the first assessment of the vessels at the Royston Breakwater. The site is shallow (<6 m) and dense, with 14 vessels packed into an 500 x 100-m area. The original breakwater was designed to protect the Comox Logging and Railway Company log dump and booming ground on the south-western side of Comox Bay that dates from the early 20th century. The earliest ship was scuttled in the bay in 1936, and the last, in 1962. Many have partially collapsed due to corrosion and storms on this exposed site, but significant portions are still three-dimensional, and visible above water. Sailing ships include an auxiliary schooner, a barkentine, and three Cape Horn windjammers. There are also three frigates, two destroyers, a US Navy deep sea rescue tug, two historic steam tugs, and a Norwegian-built whaler. A number of these vessels have dramatic histories, including famous convoy battles against wolf packs, U-boat sinkings, the rescue of 1,000 seamen from the capsizing battleship HMS Prince of Wales near Singapore, and multiple evacuation trips from the beaches of Dunkirk are associated with various ships.
News Coverage
Vancouver SUN
Comox Valley Echo.
A News (television clip)
Stern of Comet. Photo by J. Pollack 2011.
Windlass of Comet with INA member Sean Adams. The 318-ft. Comet was a four-masted oil barque carrying “case oil” or kerosene in 5-gallon cans to the Far East. The vessel was launchd in 1901 in Port Glasgow, Scotland. Photo by past UASBC president Jacques Marc.
Bow of the 1876, 258-ft. Cape Horn windjammer Melanope (built in Liverpool England), and the compound engine & boiler of the 1904, 96-ft. steamtug Qualicum (built in Philadelphia, PA). Photo by John Pollack.