Orion (1904 ship): Difference between revisions
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[[File:Fireboat Orion Battling a fire at a Vancouver grain elevator -c.jpg|left|thumb|Fireboat Orion Battling a fire at a Vancouver grain elevator in 1932]] | [[File:Fireboat Orion Battling a fire at a Vancouver grain elevator -c.jpg|left|thumb|Fireboat Orion Battling a fire at a Vancouver grain elevator in 1932]] | ||
[[File:CVA 447-2533 - S.S. Orion V.H.B. (Vancouver Harbour Board) Fireboat.jpg|thumb|444px|The ''Orion'' was converted to serve as a fireboat in 1930.]] | [[File:CVA 447-2533 - S.S. Orion V.H.B. (Vancouver Harbour Board) Fireboat.jpg|thumb|444px|The ''Orion'' was converted to serve as a fireboat in 1930.]] | ||
Latest revision as of 01:31, 1 December 2023
_Fireboat.jpg)
The Orion was constructed as a whale catcher in 1904, in Christiana, Norway.[1] She was a steampowered vessel, 91 ft (27.74 m) long, 17 ft (5.18 m) wide, displacing 109 tonnes. Robert Lloyd Weber, author of a book on commercial whaling in the Pacific Northwest, wrote that she was the first steam-powered chaser boat in British Columbia.
He recorded that the Orion had to ship her whale catching gear in a commercial freighter, because every available space had to be loaded with coal for her long and difficult voyage from Norway, around Cape Horn, to British Columbia.[1]
The Orion's first crew, who sailed her from Norway, were Norwegian whalers.[1] Her owners wanted to take advantage of the Norwegian whalers' experience, and invited them to stay in Canada. Canadian fishermen complained that their experience should be ignored, and Canadian seamen should be given first crack at their jobs.
In its initial years of operation her owners considered the Orion a great success, harvesting hundreds of whales per year. By 1916, nine other Canadian whalers were working out of British Columbia, and Americans had followed the Canadian example, and the whale stock off the coast of the Pacific Northwest had been devastated. The Orion, like most of the other vessels, was repurposed. She was converted to fish halibut.
In 1930 she was converted to serve as a fireboat, serving in Vancouver, British Columbia.[2] The Port of Vancouver's 1933 annual report stated that the Orion had responded to 75 alarms.[3] Lea Edgar, a historian at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, wrote in the BC Shipping News, that the Orion was "dubious in its effectiveness", and that she was retired, in 1937, and sold for scrap in 1941.[4][5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Robert Lloyd Webb (2011). On the Northwest: Commercial Whaling in the Pacific Northwest, 1790-1967. UBC Press. ISBN 9780774843157. Retrieved on 2017-03-30.
- ↑ (1989) Harbour & Shipping, Volume 72. Progress Publishing. Retrieved on 2017-03-30. “Their choice fell on the ancient whale catcher Orion, built in Norway in 1904.”
- ↑ (1933) Annual Report -- 1933. Port of Vancouver, British Columbia. Retrieved on 2017-03-30. “The Fireboat "Orion" responded to 75 fire alarms, most of them trivial, except that on the S.S. "Lome" when valuable assistance was rendered.”
- ↑ Lea Edgar. Fireboats: A century of marine protection, BC Shipping News, November 2015, p. 20-21. Retrieved on 2017-03-30.
- ↑ J. A. O'Dowd. Canadian Transportation, Southam Business Publications, 1937, p. 511. Retrieved on 2017-03-31. “Vancouver Needs Fireboat— Following condemnation of the Vancouver Harbour fireboat Pluvius, early this year, Vancouver has been without a fireboat...”