Sea Champ

Simon Bancroft reports (24/07/2016) that "I also looked up our own vessel, Sea Champ, with your photo of her alongside Mustang. I can tell you a few things about her. Curiously the Canadian registry is wrong about her origin. I don’t know who “David Walsh, Richmond” is, but his name got somehow inserted as builder. That is not a big surprise given the number of vessels Gary Kleaman processed in pencil through the office of Kay McElwain. Nonetheless, the actual certificate of registry shows the vessel built in California, 1944, builder unknown. Gary bought her from (I think) a university in Washington state that was using her for a research platform. This vessel was built as a US Army 45ft standard tug, one of many and a sister to Nanaimo Flyer and Westcoaster here in B.C. At the beginning of WW2 the US Army purchased the plans of the 45 ft tug built by Equitable Equipment New Orleans because it was a proven design and the largest hull that could be loaded aboard a railroad flatcar. That allowed fabrication of components anywhere in the US and assembly at Naval yards on either coast. I have an old photo from Westcoast Mariner magazine showing hulls and houses lined up in San Diego; Sea Champ is probably among them." He futhre noted that "Capt. Keith Philip died at the wheel while towing an empty gravel barge down the North Arm."