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The Mt. Ream – Fishpacker and Yacht

by Mark Sumner 2016

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

In 1985 I was living on the Godfather, a fish packer, at West Bay Shipyards in New Westminster BC. I made friends with a really great couple that at that time owned the Mt. Ream. The couple were Ken and June Carlton.

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

They had lived on the boat for some time before I had met them and had done some amazing work to her. They had scraped the bilge with paint scrapers and removed all the whiskers of wood. All the pipes had been painted and colour coded and all systems had been made triple redundant. Ken would work at Annacis Island in the shipyard and then put most of the money back into the boat.

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

One of the most impressive things, to me, was replacing all the batteries in the engine room with NiCad batteries, along with the special charger. They had two cats living with them on board, Fidley and Portside. The boat was moved to the Fraser River just under the Alex Fraser bridge. It was around this time that I took the pictures in this essay. I lost touch with the Carltons in the early 1990s and heard that they had sold the vessel to move onto land as they were getting on in years.

That is Ken Carlton standing with the cover for the batteries open. (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

She was built in 1944 in Wilmington CA USA by the Wilmington Boat Works Inc. In 1944 she was owned by the U.S. Army Transportation Corps. and could be in the series TP–127 – TP–131. She was successively renamed as Senator (II) (1946); Rosario Straits (I) (1949); Fury Straits (1956c); Seaforth Fury (1975); Seanator (II) (1980); Mt. Ream (1983) and then Wild Horses (2005).)

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

In 1946–1947 she was owned by Commodore Tug Co. Ltd., Vancouver BC. In 1953–1961 she was owned by Straits Towing Ltd., Vancouver BC. In 1974 she was owned by Seaforth Towing Ltd., Vancouver BC. In 1979 she was owned by Grant Adlington, Squamish BC. In 1980 she was owned by Arthur J. Smith (MO), Terrace BC. In 1982-1989 she was owned by K. & J. Logging Ltd., New Westminster BC. In 1990-2004 she was owned by June & Elizabeth Carlson, New Westminster BC. In 2005 she was owned by Jim & Cindy Corbin, Anchorage AK.

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

Mt. Ream (Photo from the Mark Sumner collection.)

To quote from this article please cite:

Sumner, Mark (2016) The Mt. Ream – Fishpacker and Yacht Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Images/Godfather_Essay.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.

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