I still regret selling my 1954 22’ Turner Sea Skiff, back in the early 2000s. I bought her in my last summer as a University student, with all the money I had at the time, and named her “Iron Blue”. I used and loved that boat intensely for about 15 years before the realities of a pending child and a busy career became painfully clear. By then, she needed some significant restoration work and I simply didn’t have the time or wherewithal. In hindsight, I should have put her in storage and restored her as time allowed.
She was one of the few remaining of what was once a large number of the boats built by Turner Boatworks in Coal Harbour (Vancouver), many of which were local water taxis. Mercury and PDQ each had fleets running around Howe Sound in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In the mid-to-late ‘50s, my grandfather had a sister to mine, named “Blue Moon”, so it was particularly meaningful to me to find one and keep her alive for a while.
I couldn’t pull into any dock without an old-timer coming over and telling me about their long-ago trips to cabins and logging camps in a Turner.
I love, and have loved, a number of boats, but that one still holds a special spot for me.
