Feb 27, 2024

You are invited to support an historic, recently restored and refitted BC sailboat, Dorothy, by voting for her in a contest, the Classic Boat Awards 2024, run by the UK’s prestigious Classic Boat Magazine. The Maritime Museum of BC (MMBC), owner of this sleek, wooden vessel built in 1897, believes she’s the oldest sailboat in Canada. As she isn’t the only classic yacht in the running, you’re urged to go online and vote for her in the category of Restored Sailing Vessel under 40ft.

Here’s Dorothy’s backstory. In 1896, William Langley, a barrister and Victoria Yacht Club member strolled down to well-known boatbuilder John Robinson’s yard on the Inner Harbour with drawings of a 30-foot sailboat published in the 1895 edition of Dixon Kemp’s Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing. The yacht designer was Linton Hope of the Thames Yacht Building Company. Langley wanted a fast racer that would beat his fellow club members. Langley took possession of his yacht, Dorothy, in 1897 and raced her vigourously amassing many silver trophies. For most of her life, she sailed as a gaff-rigged, double-headsail sloop.

He kept the boat meticulously and left logs describing his rigging and other modifications over 47 years, finally selling her in 1944. Since then, 14 successive owners left their mark until she was donated to the MMBC in 1995.

Her age had begun to show and eventually, while establishing a Dorothy fund, MMBC opted for a major refit in 2011. Boatbuilder/wooden boat restorer Tony Grove spent the next decade refurbishing Dorothy’s structural elements in his Gabriola workshop. He was smitten by her elegant lines, heritage, and the turn-of-the 20^th century BC culture she represented. As he noted in his boat journal, “If we don’t preserve part of our history and part of our past, we lose touch with where we came from and who we are.”

Grove replaced some planks, dug out corroded iron keel bolts, burned off the hull’s 120-plus years of paint, excavated old cotton and paying compounds, then waterproofed the seams with new cotton and red lead putty.  He switched copper rivet and rove fasteners and fashioned a rub rail. Once her structure was restored, Dorothy was ferried to Ladysmith.

Refit 2.0 was conducted by a group of savvy volunteers headed by expert boatwright and Dorothy historian Robert Lawson at the Ladysmith Maritime Society.  For a year, they painted, varnished, rigged, restored bronzes and portholes, crafted a tiller, built seats and soles and made Dorothy’s second, 2023 launch look as glorious as at her 1897 launch.

Dorothy is the oldest boat in the Classic Boat Awards’ lineup and deserves to win.

To vote for Dorothy and support BC’s maritime history, visit https://awards.classicboat.co.uk/vote-now/. You can vote until Monday 11 March at 10am, GMT. Vote in the “Restored Sailing Vessel under 40ft” category.The winners will be published in the May issue of Classic Boat and online.

By Marianne Scott