"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible."
-T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia")
I've always been a dreamer of the day, of that there is no doubt. Though the most dangerous manifestation thus far may be the continual beating upon my finances, I have come to accept it. If, years ago, someone had told that I would someday travel from Vancouver to California to consider the purchase of a 63-foot wooden military boat with six decades of wear on her, then truck her hundreds of miles home, I would not have argued.
Looking out onto Howe Sound in the Vancouver area as a child, I would regularly see a boat known as the "BC Scaler." She would be carrying her crew to measure logs that were bundled into floating booms before they were towed to the mills. Although I obviously did not know it at the time, this 63-foot vessel was originally built by the U.S. Navy and likely was one operated by the U.S. Army Air Force to rescue downed airmen during World War II. The official designation was AVR, for Aircraft Vessel Rescue, but they were largely known as "crashboats." This particular boat, while still military gray, had an additional bit of cabin structure built on and had been converted to a dry stack exhaust. Nevertheless, her sleek lines and purposeful stance remained blatantly present.
RANDY CUNNINGHAMThe author used to watch these AVRs (Aircraft Vessel Rescue), sometimes called "crashboats," as a boy. Now, he owns one.
When I was old enough to walk down to the marina, I would stand by its massive gray bulk and marvel. It just looked fast, even sitting at the dock.
Fast forward to 2004. As I was starting to look for a live-aboard vessel, I was reading my local Boat Journal and stopped at a page that had the very same old "BC Scaler" listed for sale. Although it triggered all kinds of memories, I did not act on it immediately. But when the next month's issue again ran the same ad, I decided to at least go and look.
A call to the broker indicated that the boat had a deposit in place, subject to the sale of the purchaser's house. The deal was good for about another 4 weeks. When I went to see it, I found it was much the same as I remembered, with the exception of a hideous railing added around the circumference of the vessel. That, plus another 35 or so years of wear, made it a fairly unappealing prospect. Still, being a romantic idiot, I started talking myself into the possibilities. Having already restored a smaller wooden sailboat, I had an inkling of the commitment this represented. But I decided to wait and make an offer on the day the competing bid expired.
Meanwhile, I did more research into what these boats were all about, their history, construction and their place in the major conflicts. Originally consigned by the U.S. Navy, these boats were proposed as high-speed, highly-seaworthy rescue craft. They were also used as patrol boats, special operations vessels and for other purposes. Their supplied ordnance was fairly light, with twin Browning.50 calibers in port and starboard gun tubs on the bridge, and two 320-pound depth charges aft. Some skippers managed to install an extra .50 cal foredeck gun as well. One of their more famous missions was the feigned D-Day attack on Italy as part of the "Beachjumper" fleet under Lt. Commander Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
RANDY CUNNINGHAMCrashboats were designed to be seaworthy, high-speed rescue boats.
T.E. Lawrence, whose quote appears above, played a major role in the devising and designing the forerunners to these boats in Britain. Well known as something of a visionary, he knew of the impending war well before his untimely demise in 1935, and that many pilots would be lost in the English Channel. The cold waters and strong currents meant time was of the essence in their retrieval. Older, displacement-type vessels were simply too slow. In the early 1930s he and British designer Hubert Scott Paine developed these high-speed, planing hulls that would later be developed into MTBs, the so-called "motor torpedo boats" used by Allied forces during the war (PT boats in the US). A&E's biography on Lawrence has footage of him on these vessels during their trials.
This boat I had seen as a lad was a 1944 Stephens Brothers constructed unit, built in their yard in Stockton, California. Like many, it had a pair of Detroit 671's installed after its active service days. The original engines were a pair of Hall-Scott Defender V-12's requiring 100-octane fuel. While providing a top speed of up to 40 knots, they guzzled roughly 110 gph in the process. This is one of the reasons the boats were often stationed near airbases, which had ample fuel. The same held true for the larger PT boats. In fact the PTs, with their three Packard-Merlins, pilfered fuel at the rate of 475 gph when on the boil. Another item they had in common with their larger PT sisters was that only bronze and beryllium tools were used on board, to avoid the chance of a static spark. Rather frighteningly, the onboard cabin heaters burned this same fuel.
