May 2003 West Vancouver Historical Society Page 3 SCRAPBOOK This page contains scraps of West Vancouver's past - personal memories, magazine or newspaper articles, stories told by parents and grandparents, or from letters or diaries passed down through families. We welcome your contributions - an important way to help preserve our history. As a continuation of Captain Lancaster's memoirs about the West Vancouver Ferries on which he served for some years, both before and after the second World War, we print Part 3 - the final episode. Some of the story may be known to you, but it is interesting to see it from a seaman's point of view. We would like to thank Jack Lancaster for providing us with his fathers story. How many of you remember "Captain Gerry"? Why not share your more memorable trips on the ferry with us. We would be glad to hear from you COLLECTING FARES As deck hand or Mate we had to get the fares and sell tickets to passengers after the ferry had left the wharf except in foggy weather when this was done before the passengers came aboard. The trip from West Vancouver to Vancouver was about a four-mile run and took an average time of about twenty to thirty minutes, depend- ing on the tide. The fares were twenty cents for a single trip, thirty cents return, one commuter's ticket for ten rides for a dollar and another communter's ticket twenty- three rides for two dollars. SKIPPERS' DUTIES The skipper of the ferry was a "one-man band" in that he had to steer the ship, handle the telegraph, blow the whistle, keep a lookout and bring the ferry close enough to the wharf for a man to get ashore with a line - in fact on some occasions the fog was so thick that this man had to feel for the wharf with a boat-hook before he attempted to get ashore. We used to work a nine hour shift and many times when I got home at the end of a shift I was too tired to take my boots off. We had a very tough schedule to maintain - during the morning and evening rush hours we operated a twenty minute schedule with three ferries running and during the rest of the day a thirty minute schedule. Of course, in a fog the trip used to take longer and as a result we had no time to eat or to have any real breaks. ROUGH WEATHER Sometimes it was quite difficult to bring the ferry alongside at the West Vancouver wharf when it was rough, as the vessel rolled considerably and the ap- proach to the wharf was tricky. After passing Prospect Point the ebb tide set to the west, then as we turned in towards the wharf the current set to the east away from the wharf and then, just before we reached the wharf itself, the current set quite strongly on to it and so one had to be ready for every change. LIFE ON THE WEST VANCOUVER FERRIES 1 remember particularly one very rough evening when we had about two hundred passengers aboard and I had to slow down about half way to Prospect Point as we were taking green seas aboard, and when we were off the Point the cross seas were particularly bad and we rolled very heavily as we approached the wharf. How- ever, we made the landing and though it was quite a cold evening I was perspiring quite freely when we got alongside. On the return trip we had to run with the wind and the sea abeam and, when about half way across and rolling very heavily, some friends of mine ashore were watching when suddenly all our lights went out and they thought we must have turned over. Fortunately it was only a fuse that had blown. I was glad when that shift was over. FOGGY DAYS The fogs these days (1973) are bad enough at times, but they were worse in the "thirties" when so many office buildings were heated by coal furnaces and most homes had either coal or sawdust furnaces. When in fog we used to blow our whistle, not only to tell other ships of our position, but also to enable us to figure out, by listening for the echoes, (a) how far we were away from the land or another ship, and, (b) from what type of object we were receiving this echo, e.g. a sharp echo would come from land, another ship, scow or a solid object, a mushy echo from trees or debris on the water. Our whistle and the echo were often so clear and sharp that we could even pick up an echo from an orange crate. One night as I rounded Prospect Point I got a very sharp echo from right ahead. Figuring that it was at least a scow adrift, I hurriedly put the engines full astern, holding my breath and while waiting for the crash, I could literally feel my cap being pushed off my head by my hair standing on end. With the strong tide, the fact that we were very close to the shore and the closeness of the echo, there was neither the time nor the room to alter course at all, and we were just about stopped when we hit a heavy timber which fortunately did not do any damage except to my nerves! These fogs were very thick at times and there used to be the following story going the rounds about the man who was sitting on the rail in fog and he fell into the water when the ferry hit a clear patch as he was leaning too heavily against the fog. (Please find the end of this story on page 4)