British Columbia’s last wooden, steam-powered tug boat, SS Master, is getting a boat-lift at Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards in North Vancouver. Seaspan has offered 10 of its workers to help restore the 85-foot long tug that weighs 225 tons over a two week period and this will complete about 20 per cent of the work that is needed. Built in 1922, she contributed to BC’s economic development first in the logging industry and later in the coal trade until retiring from service in 1959. The SS Master still bears the Marpole Towing Co. colours that consist of black diamonds on a white band on an orange stack. The World Ship Society of Western Canada bought her in 1985 for $500, with the idea of rescuing and restoring the Master “as a tribute to the tug boat industry of B.C.,” said the S.S. Master Society. The Society is fundraising $2.5 million to complete the restoration and once she has been restore she will be towed back to the Britannia Shipyards National Historical Site in Steveston.
