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What Happened to the Milbanke Sound?
by John MacFarlane 2018
The Milbanke Sound (Photo from the John MacFarlane collection.)
In 1963 the Milbanke Sound (ON 320191 IMO6404789 VRN20866) was built by Benson Brothers Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Vancouver BC. She was 25.76m x 7.35m x 3.38m (84.5’ x 24.1’ x 11.1’) steel–hulled 180.73gt 122.9rt. She was powered by a 500bhp diesel engine by Waukesha–Hesselman Engines. In 2018 she was temporarily renamed as 1397 and then again as Robertina.
In 1963–1989 she was owned by Union Trading Ltd., Vancouver BC. In 1991–2004 she was owned by Mast Fishing Co. Ltd., Port Coquitlam BC. In 2012–2018 she was owned by Mast Fishing Co. Ltd., Port Coquitlam BC and Jim Pattison Enterprises Ltd., Vancouver BC. In 2018 she was owned by Mexican interests.
We regularly see older vessels broken up or sold out of the Canada Register of Shipping – usually to the United States. When a vessel is sold to foreign owners they often disappear through name changes. Here is a happy story of a vessel with life left in it that was sold to Mexican owners. I am indebted to Captain Karl Darwin for arranging for the photos to be sent to The Nauticapedia from the representative of the new owner Guadalupe Villamil Montano. Captain Darwin reports that "the original engine was replaced with a big Cat V8 some time ago".
The newly named Robertina (Photo from the Guadalupe Villamil Montano collection.)
This vessel is no longer registered in Canada and is now registered in Ensenda Mexico. She she will be set up as a sardine seiner for a tuna farm located off El Sauzal, just up the coast from Ensenada B.C.
The newly named Robertina. The B.C. may seem confusing to British Columbians but it stands for ‘Baja California’, officially the ‘Free and Sovereign State of Baja California’ is a state in Mexico. (Photo from the Guadalupe Villamil Montano collection.)
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John (2018) What Happened to the Milbanke Sound?.
Nauticapedia.ca 2018. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Milbanke_Sound.php
Site News: December 21, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.