Contents - drop down & click! HOMERussel Vessel ListingFamous Russel BoatsRussel Company HistoryR-H News and BrochuresLogging Boat OperationBoat Photo CollectionsBoat Designs & BlueprintsRussel Video InterviewInside Russel Bros.Hull Number Index

Clippings courtesy Leigh Cossey, Jan. 29, 2020.

	Ottawa Citizen, Mon. June 23, 1947. A destroyer with a record of wartime service in the Royal Canadian Navy was numbered among transactions completed by the Ship Sales Division of War Assets Corporation during the month of May. The former HMCS Gatineau was purchased by Capital Iron and Metal Ltd., Victoria, BC to be cut up for scrap purposes. One tug, the Shawville, was purchased by the National Harbors Board.
	Vancouver Sun, Mon. July 14, 1947. National Harbors Board plan to put the latest addition to their harbor fleet into Burrard Inlet on Tuesday. She is the 40-foot steel diesel tug Shawville, to be renamed NHB-V-Patrol No. 1. The vessel is currently lying in a rather unusual place - on top of a rail flat-car near Ballantyne Pier. She was brought here overland from from Eastern Canada, where she was purchased. With MV Brockton and Burnaby, NHB now have three harbor craft here.
	Vancouver Sun, Wed. Sept. 7, 1955. I COVER THE WATERFRONT - Tugs Sweep Harbor Clean, End Up With Kindling Pile. Sweeping the harbor has nothing to do with brooms. I was out in the tug Brockton II Tuesday, when she and the Burnaby stretched a 150-foot boom of cedar logs between them and headed toward Second Narrows on one of their regular harbor sweeps. They didn't expect to find much debris. The Burnaby had been on a scouting expedition earlier in the morning, and had not sighted as much as a drifting match stick. It wasn't until the Burnaby and Brockton reached the North Shore booming grounds that their logs began collecting a few logs, two fruit boxes, a spare oil can, and enough kindling to light the fires for a year. In an hour and a half we collected about eight cords of wood and headed back for the foot of Dunlevy Street, where the litter was towed ashore and piled ready for a bonfire.
	Vancouver Sun, Wed. Sept. 7, 1955. Harbor roundup of floating debris winds up with National Harbors Board tugs Brockton II and Burnaby towing stray logs and sticks to foot of Dunlevy where they are piled on a huge bonfire. Tugs sweep littered water with boom between them.
	Vancouver Sun, Wed. Sept. 7, 1955. Harbor debris is being piled up for burning by bulldozer at the foot of Denlevy. Six-month collection was towed to beach by National Harbors Board boat Brockton II. Huge heap of rotting logs, snags and pilings is expected to burn for two months after it is lit in November.
	Calgary Herald, Mon. Aug. 21, 1961. Seamen Arrested For Taking Tug on Joy Ride Police said Sunday night they are holding two seamen after a $10,000 tug was stolen from its moorings at the weekend and taken for a "joy ride". At first, police said, it appeared two men had drowned when clothing was found on a dock. Further investigation showed the National Harbors Board tug Snauq had been broken into and a second tug Brockton II had been stolen. It was found later tied to a barge some distance away.
	Vancouver Sun, Sat. May 15, 1965. Harbor Cleanup boat Brockton II nosed in too close to shore near Brockton Point Friday and ended up high and dry on rocks. Crew members braced craft to prevent it toppling when tide went out.
	The Province, Sat. Jan. 28, 1967. First steps toward deeping of the First Narrows ship channel from a minimum of 40 feet to 55 feet will be undertaken in about three weeks by a Montreal engineering firm. Port Manager B.D.L. Johnson said Emery Holzl and Associates, inc. which specializes in seismic soundings, has been commissioned by the federal department of public works to carry out a study to determine the feasibility and cost of the dredging. This includes the size of the proposed channel, its location and the amount and type of materials that will have to be handled. The NHB tug Brockton II will be loaned for the sounding project.
	The Province, Thurs Oct. 28, 1976. Boat Becomes "Sheet of Flame" in Harbor Explosion. A fishboat exploded into flames while tied up at a Coal Harbor gas barge Wednesday after the owner left his cabin stove on while taking on nearly 80 gallons of gasoline. The 35-foot boat, owned by a Powell River man whose name was not released, was a "total write-off", according to fire officials. No one was injured. "I'd filled him up full of gas and he was taking on stove oil when it blew," said Ron Robison, attendant at the Esso gas barge. "The whole boat just went up." Robison said the owner scrambled off the bow when the cabin exploded. The two men threw off the mooring lines and the boat drifted away from the barge. "Then he informed me his stove was going through all this," said Robison. He added that had the boat exploded when it was taking on gasoline the barge probably would have gone up as well. Robison said he thought gas fumes reaching reaching the cabin stove caused the explosion. The boat drifted to HMCS Discovery where it ran aground, still burning. Land-based fire crews waded out to begin dousing the flames because the city fire boat couldn't get close enough. The Nation Harbors Board boat Brockton II later pulled the blazing boat into the middle of Coal Harbor and the fire boat completed the job. Robison said the Esso barge was not damaged beyong burned buffer tires. He said the boat owner left the barge in a small boat but returned when the fishboat was a safe distance away. Robison said the fishboat is only the second to explode at his barge in seven or eight years, but the stove accident isn't uncommon. "It happens all the time. We have people that come in with hibachis going on the deck and they wonder why we won't fuel them...we try to be careful but you can't look in the guy's cabin." Robison said that the owner mentioned this was his second boat that had exploded. Charter boat operator Rene La Roche, who notified the fire department when he saw a "sheet of flame" go up from the far side of the barge, commended the land-based firemen. "These guys were into the water up to their armpits," he said. The incident was the third boat fire he had reported in the past three months.

Brockton II in Vancouver c. 1966. Photo by Rene Beauchamp.

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Brockton II photo courtesy nauticapedia.ca.
source: http://www.nauticapedia.ca/dbase/Query/Shiplist4.php?&name=Shawville%20(H.M.C.S.)&id=12736&Page=1&input=shawville

 

Photo courtesy of Rene Beauchamp, 02/10/17. BROCKTON II after its modernisation. According to Transport Canada, owned now by Burke Channel Enterprises Ltd. and Leslie Ralph Koroluk.

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June 17, 2009. Photo by Hairy Potter on flickr.
source: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/hairypotter/3857012307/

 

BROCKTON II August 4, 2013. Photos by agent1320 on flickr.
sources: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/79593880@N02/9497207862/   http://www.flickriver.com/photos/79593880@N02/9494426831/

 

BROCKTON II bellacoolalife hashtag Zozu.site @kristymaymay

 

Derelict tugboat 'Brockton 11', Bella Coola, British Columbia, Canada.
source: https://www.fotosearch.com/UNS079/u22002422/

 

Brockton II abandoned. Bella Coola, BC, Friday Oct. 12, 2018. Photos by Leigh Cossey.
The lower hull has been re-plated over top of the clinker plating.

 

Contents: drop down & click!HOMERussel Vessel ListingFamous Russel BoatsRussel Company HistoryR-H News and BrochuresLogging Boat OperationBoat Photo CollectionsBoat Designs & BlueprintsRussel Video InterviewInside Russel Bros.Hull Number Index

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