|
On June 3 2026 a group of shellbacks visited Gravenhurst and took a tour on the Wenonah II.
0 Comments
Colleen Mccourt and Ivan Simokovic spoke to the Shellback Club about the functions and operation of the Toronto Search and Rescue - Marine operation. Many boaters will have seen their vessel on the lake without knowing what they do . . . and it turns out they do quite a lot to ensure safety for boaters.  Phil Dawson returned to the Shellback Club to look at the history and current life of the S.S. Keetwatin. A ship built in Scotland in 1907 for use on the upper Great Lakes, she was transported through the St. Lawrence and Welland Canal locks in two parts, being too large for the locks of the time. Entering service in the Canadian Pacific Railways fleet, she carried passengers from Port McNicoll in Georgian Bay to the Lakehead on Lake Superior, carrying passengers and freight until her retirement in 1965. After some years as a museum ship on the upper lakes, she travelled to the city of Kingston on Lake Ontario in 2023 to her current home at the Museum of the Great Lakes.  About Phil Dawson
Phil Dawson was born post WWII of Anglo-German ancestry. He first became interested in ships during his early childhood in the city of Bahia, Brazil, through his father’s work there as an exporter and, as a passenger on several long ocean voyages with his parents and siblings. Moving first to England and then to Canada, he completed his schooling in Winnipeg, studying computer science at the University of Manitoba. While working with large mainframe computer systems in Canada and Europe, he also continued to follow developments in merchant ships and shipping. He started writing about these interests on a part-time basis. Leaving the computer field altogether shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, Phil opted to pursue his life-long love of architecture and design. He embarked on an entirely new photographic and literary career specializing in the design, operation and supporting infrastructural aspects of world-wide sea and air transport. On the strength of his success in these ventures, he later became an associate member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects in London. Phil Dawson has written extensively for various international shipping, aviation and architectural publications. He has also written and co-authored a number of significant books on ships and ship design. The first of these books, British Superliners of the Sixties, presented an in-depth design study of Britain’s significantly modern ORIANA, CANBERRA, and QE2. He later wrote the commemorative book, Canberra: In the Wake of Legend, at the end of her service career, and co-authored QE2: Britain’s Greatest Liner with Bruce Peter and Ian Johnstone, at the time of her decommissioning. Nautical book author and historian Bruce Kemp returned to the Shellback Club to describe the sinking, raising, and relaunch of Severn II a classic 8-metre sailboat built in 1934.  About Bruce Kemp
Bruce has been involved with the marine world since the 1970s. First as a diver and shipwright, then as a writer and photographer. He established an international reputation for his creative style. He is generally regarded as one of Canada’s top marine writers. The author of more than 1,000 feature articles for magazines and newspapers, Bruce has written two books on the Great Lakes: Weather Bomb 1913, Life and Death on the Great Lakes and The Whales of Lake Erie. He has also penned a novel about the Underground Railroad and American Civil War: The Fugitive’s Son. Today, Bruce has two new books in the production and writing stages for Harbour Publishing/Douglas & McIntyre. Weather Bomb 1913 earned him recognition from, and an associate membership in the International Ship Masters’ Association. He currently sits on the board of directors for Brigs Tall Ship Adventures (out of Hamilton) and for Friends of the Rideau. His journalism work, as both writer and photographer, has taken him to more than 40 countries. Some of the major stories he has worked on were the America’s Cup (1983-1994). In 1986, he was commissioned to write the Canadian entry into the official America’s Cup Challenger program. His was the Canadian media face during all the Canada’s Cup competitions from 1984-2004. Bruce also worked with Haida canoe carver John Bennett to record the techniques and history of creating these incredible west coast vessels. He was the first to report internationally on the recovery of Roald Amundsen’s last Arctic exploration ship – the Maud – from its resting place on the bottom of the ocean near Cambridge Bay and its two-year transport through the unforgiving Northwest Passage and North Atlantic to Oslo where it now sits as part of the Amundsen Museum. For a large part of his career Bruce worked for the Toronto Star organization, first as its weekly sailing columnist and sailing related feature writer in the sports pages, then as a feature writer for Metroland (a Torstar affiliate) in their marine and life style divisions. He also edited Sailing Canada and SailOntario magazine. Additionally, Bruce owned several local newspapers. His work now mainly appears in Wooden Boat Magazine, Great Lakes Scuttlebutt and Canadian Woodworking and Home Improvement Magazine. An award-winning writer and photographer, Bruce’s accolades include: • Caribbean Photographer of the Year (2006), • Best Travel Journalism Award from the Ontario Travel Marketing Partnership (2006) and • nearly a dozen first places and honourable mentions from the Travel Media Association of Canada from 2005-2017. As a teacher in three community colleges and one private college across Canada, he created Canada’s first travel writing course, was the developer of George Brown College’s Journalism Program and taught photography. While at George Brown, he was named one of the top teachers in that school’s Continuing Studies Department. Bruce was friends with the late Stan Rogers whom he met when Stan was finishing his last collection of songs (From Fresh Water). Bruce provided information on the Great Storm of 1913 and was the inspiration for the song “Man With Blue Dolphin”. The Blue Dolphin was a 130-foot Roué schooner that sank at the dock in Sarnia, Ontario, and on which Bruce worked as a diver to help raise. Bruce lives near the Rideau Canal in Merrickville and is restoring a 26-ft Grampian sloop when he has time to work on it. Andrew Lee of Sirens Boatworks, Merrickville spoke to the Shellback Club about his classic wooden boat construction and restoration business, Siren Boatworks. He reviewed several of their projects, focusing on the adventure restoring the Georgian Bay picnic boat, Skipper. She burned to the waterline in a boathouse fire and was later recovered from the ruins. All that was left was about a foot of charcoal from the keel up. It was redesigned and re-imagined to its original shape using computer-assisted measurement programs by naval architect Steve Killing. Then it was rebuilt by Andrew Lee of Sirens Boatworks - in Merrickville Ontario.  Ron returned to the Shellback Club to review the facts surrounding the sinking of the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in the fall of 1975. Numerous theories and possible causes exist, and were initiallly presented in a 1977 Coast Guard report and a 1978 National Transportation Safety Board report. These two reports agreed on a lot, but differed as well in significant ways. Ron also pointed out some of the newer analysis of this tragedy, looking at reports issued in the 21st century that use new informaton and advanced tools to develop a fuller framework of analysis.  About Ron Jenkins
Ron is a long time member of the National Yacht Club, an active nature and sailing photographer, interested in the history of the Toronto waterfront, and when hobbies do not interfere, works in technology marketing. He is an active participant in Waterfront for All, a coalition of groups protecting the Toronto waterfront.  Author, sailor, and artist R. Bruce Macdonald visited the Shellback Club and described the meaning of phrases from the lexicon of nautical language. Bruce's latest book, ”Sound Like A Sailor – The Book of Nautical Expressions”, explores the history and origins of everyday expressions, many of which have nautical roots. About Bruce MacDonald
Bruce MacDonald was captain of the STV Pathfinder for many years and has since moved to the west coast with his wife, Sheila, where he acquired North Star of Herschel Island and sailed it extensively for eighteen years while they raised four children aboard. He is the author of several books. Sisters of the Ice is a biography of two British Columbia Ships, St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island, that performed legendary service in the Canadian Arctic. Never Say Pig covers nautical superstitions, and his latest book, Sound Like a Sailor, explores nautical phrases and terminology and their origins. Wayne returned to the Shellback Club to describe PHRF -- the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet -- a handicapping system widely used in North America, and in Lake Ontario. PHRF enables competitive racing between sailboats of differing speed characteristics. Wayne described both the organizational structure of PHRF as well as the means of determining ratings for both boats with previous PHRF ratings, and for boat types with no previous rating history.  About Wayne Parker
Wayne was born and grew up in Toronto, where he trained as a Mechanical Engineer.
 George Hume brought the Shellback Club the story of the SS Great Eastern. The Great Eastern was an iron-hulled steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London, England. Powered by both sidewheels and a screw propeller, she was by far the largest ship ever built (692’) at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. She later in her life, laid the first transatlantic cable. About George Hume
George is an architect, retired from Ryerson University as the Director of Campus Planning and Construction. He has a deep interest in history, especially history of technology. In addition to his architecture degree from the University of Toronto, he has a masters in History of Technology from Imperial College, University of London. While studying in London, he developed an interest in the works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, especially his railway and shipbuilding endeavours. In addition to delving into references on Brunel, he commuted to university on the Great Western railway line which runs from London’s Paddington station to Bristol known as Brunel’s Pool Table due to its avoidance of hills. In Bristol, while he lived nearby, the early restoration of Brunel’s first iron ship, the Great Britain was taking shape in the drydock where she was built more than 180 years ago. He learned to sail with the Moordale Sailing Club in the Outer Harbour. He has his navy based at his summer cottage on Bone Island in the Cognashene area of southern Georgian Bay. The interest in technological history and industrial archaeology has led to extensive reading in those areas. His wife, Anne, is concerned that after 60 years of being together, she hasn’t been able to curtail his book collecting. On the other hand, the collection means that he probably doesn’t need to add to it to prepare his talks on subjects like the SS Great Eastern. |
AuthorThe Shellback Club will make occasional posts on this blog. If you want something added in a blog post. let us know. Categories
All
|
- Home
- About Shellbacks
- History
-
EVENTS
- 92nd Year Events (2025-2026)
- 91st Year Events (2024-2025)
- 90th Year Events (2023-2024)
- 89th Year Events (2022-2023)
- 88th Year Events (2021-2022)
- 87th Year Events (2020-2021)
- 86th Year Events (2019-2020)
- 85th Year Events (2018-2019)
- 84th Year Events (2017-2018)
- 83rd Year (2016-2017) Meeting Talks
- 82nd Year (2015-2016) Events
- Blog
- Useful Links
- Contact
RSS Feed
- Home
- About Shellbacks
- History
-
EVENTS
- 92nd Year Events (2025-2026)
- 91st Year Events (2024-2025)
- 90th Year Events (2023-2024)
- 89th Year Events (2022-2023)
- 88th Year Events (2021-2022)
- 87th Year Events (2020-2021)
- 86th Year Events (2019-2020)
- 85th Year Events (2018-2019)
- 84th Year Events (2017-2018)
- 83rd Year (2016-2017) Meeting Talks
- 82nd Year (2015-2016) Events
- Blog
- Useful Links
- Contact