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The Steamer Comox

by John MacFarlane 2019

Comox

Holiday tourists meet the steamship Comox at Buccaneer Bay. (Photo by Cyril Tweedale.)

Cyril Tweedale, took photographs and saved them in family albums which were recently sent to me. They each tell short stories of the British Columbia coast.

The Comox was built in 1891 at Glasgow Scotland by J. McArthur & Co. In 1891 she was assembled at Union Shipyard, Coal Harbour, Vancouver BC as the first steel ship launched in BC. In 1897 she was rebuilt. In 1920 she was again rebuilt. She was 101.0’ x 18.1’ x 5.2’ steel–hulled 142gt 60rt She was powered by a compound steam engine by Bow McLachlan & Co., Paisley Scotland UK. In 1920 she was re–engined with 3–cylinder internal combustion Fairbanks Morse Co. diesels. In 1920 she was renamed as the Alejandro

In 1891–1901 she was owned by the Union Steamship Co. of British Columbia Ltd., Victoria BC. In 1901 she was owned by G.T. Legg, Vancouver BC. In 1919 she was owned by the Vancouver Machinery Depot for breakup but was later re–sold. In 1920 she was renamed as the Alejandro for Mexican coast trade. In 1927 she was owned by the Cal–Mex Line (Alexander Woodside, San Francisco CA Managers).

Her career was not particularly noteworthy compared to other vessels of her era. She ran for a time in competition with the Rainbow (ex–Teaser) to northern logging camps. She carried passengers and some small freight to smaller coastal ports until the end of the First World War when a surplus of vessels and an economic slowdown caused her to be laid up and sold.


To quote from this article please cite:

MacFarlane, John (2019) The Steamer Comox. Nauticapedia.ca 2019. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Comox.php

Nauticapedia

Site News: January 14, 2025

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,957 vessel histories (with 16,337 images and 13,935 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3998 images).

My thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of the vessel histories in the vessel database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he continues to contribute to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Thanks to John Spivey who is beginning his 4th year of fact checking all of the entries in the vessel database.

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