Duc D’Olrleans captain Ken Bracewell stands at a replica of the wheel of the original Duc, the HMC Q105, at Sombra Museum. Bracewell spoke about his experience with the original Duc D’Orleans during a presentation at the museum on Sept. 29. CARL HNATYSHYN/SARNIA THIS WEEK
By Carl Hnatyshyn, Sarnia This Week,
It was a hunter of Nazi submarines. It was a research ship. And it ferried thousands of buoyant passengers along the St. Clair River for weddings, parties and tours.
Built in Sarnia in 1943, the original Duc D’Orleans was a vessel that served quite a number of functions over its 60 years of service. The ship’s riveting past was the subject of a presentation at Sombra Museum’s on Sept. 29, as the ship’s captain Ken Bracewell spoke about the history and legacy of the legendary craft.
One of seven Fairmile vessels built in Sarnia for use as minesweepers and sub-chasers in the Second World War, the original Duc D’Orleans was made by the Wallaceburg-based shipbuilding company Mac Craft at their Sarnia facility. Prior to the war, Mac Craft had specialized in constructing smaller pleasure boats, Bracewell said, but the government leaned on the company to produce ships for the Canadian Navy during the six-year conflict.
Measuring 112 feet in length and 18 feet wide and traveling at a cruising speed of just under 20 knots, the vessel was initially christened the Q105 and spent the duration of its service during the war escorting convoys, patrolling and clearing mines. The boat’s unique design was a testament to those who designed and built the wooden vessels.
“For boats that were originally designed to be an inexpensive throwaway, it’s amazing how many of these boats are still here,” Bracewell told a crowd of approximately 30, noting that Fairmiles were also built in many other Commonwealth countries at the time, including Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. “It’s a feather in the cap for the designers and people who built them.”
One of the most unique features on the boat was the hull, which was designed in a highly innovative way, Bracewell said.
“The hull construction was something I’d never seen,” he said. “For one thing, the boat was riveted and not screwed, something I’d never hear of before. The vessel also had a diagonal hull design made with thick mahogany wood.”
The hull’s design allowed the vessel to be highly fuel-efficient, Bracewell said.
“I used to love talking about fuel,” he said with a laugh. “It was about eight gallons an hour with everything running. It was such a sea-kindly vessel.”
Having served its purpose during the war, the Q105 was later decommissioned and the ship was loaned out to McGill University for research in the St. Lawrence River. After that, the ship was sold to a tour company in Quebec where it took curious onlookers and tourists around the Ile d’Orleans, from where it got its new moniker, the Duc D’Orleans.
While the converted mine-sweeper was still ferrying passengers about in the St. Lawrence in the late seventies, a then 26 year-old Bracewell and his friend Jacques Beauchamp were thinking up of ways to start up a passenger cruise ship service right here in Sarnia. The pair had seen the ultimately unsuccessful attempt of Captain Albert Avery to start a cruise company here when he brought a 1,500-passenger boat to sail the St. Clair River. Unfortunately for Avery, the ‘party boat’ that he purchased for Sarnia bon vivants broke down so often that his endeavour ended in failure. But that was the spark the two needed to find a suitable cruise ship for the community.
“My buddy and I decided that the old cruise boat wasn’t doing well and we thought we could do a better job. Ha ha,” he said, smiling.
While working at Sears one day in 1978, Bracewell received an urgent call about an imminent opportunity to buy the Duc. In the days before cell-phones and text messaging, Bracewell said he jumped at the chance, leaving his wife a fairly simple note at their home stating ‘Gone to Quebec City to look at a boat’.
The pair purchased the vessel and brought it back to Sarnia, beginning a 27-year run of fun-filled cruises down the St. Clair.
But while the ship had already been giving tours in Quebec, it still wasn’t a craft that was built as a passenger ship, forcing Bracewell to make a few changes. Below deck, the ship had crew cabins for 18 sailors, a couple of staterooms, a munitions store as well as a galley with a cast iron stove.
Bracewell decided to remove the walls from the bedrooms to create more space, and the munitions store became the bar, where his wife dutifully served as bartender over the next 27 years.
“She spent most of her life chest-level in water,” he joked, noting that having a below-deck bar is now frowned upon on modern tour vessels.
With a capacity of 194 passengers (“That’s because there were 194 lifejackets aboard the ship,” Bracewell joked), the Duc took passengers from Sarnia as well as from Windsor and Detroit. As captain over those 27 years, Bracewell said that he was the keeper of many salty sea stories that occurred during that time.
“There’s got to be stuff happening over 27 years,” he said, laughing. “Most of it I can’t talk about. But we did a lot of work out of the Detroit/Windsor area, so we had plenty of fancy shmancy stuff going on aboard the Duc.”
Guests aboard the ship included such dignitaries as Detroit mayor Coleman Young, legendary radio personality J.P. McCarthy and renowned Chrysler CEO Lee Iaccoca. While a handful of passengers thought it a bright idea to jump overboard and swim to shore, and one passenger attempted to take his own life while the Duc was going down the Detroit River, Bracewell said that there were no injuries during the ship’s long run.
But after 27 years, the cost of maintaining the wooden ship became prohibitively expensive. For one thing, finding someone to work on a wooden boat became an increasingly difficult proposition. “Very few people had the knowledge, tools or willingness to work on a wooden boat,” he said.
To simply change a plank on the outside of the ship was an arduous, time-consuming feat. And the Duc was always viewed with trepidation when it was taken into dry-docks.
“I got pretty good at signing waivers,” Bracewell said. “The maintenance just got to the point where it was cost versus revenue. I just made the decision that it was going to be too difficult to maintain and still make a profit. That’s really what it was. I loved being on the boat but I’m not a wealthy man.”
So, in 2005, the venerable Duc stopped its impressive run and was replaced by the more passenger-friendly 70-foot vessel The Spirit of Newport, which was later christened the Duc D’Orleans II.
One significant difference between the two vessels is that the newer one was ‘purpose-built’ for passengers, Bracewell said. The Duc II is also considerably more ‘stable’ in the water than its predecessor.
“The wood of the vessel is the biggest difference. The vessel that we have now is short and fat, meaning that the inclination is not as variable as it was on the old boat. The old boat used to be referred to as a ‘soft ship’,” he said.
As well, the maintenance costs that made the original Duc such a money pit have been lowered significantly.
“We’ve been able to retain more earnings,” Bracewell said. “We actually have money and time and a bank account (with the new vessel).”
But in spite of all the costly maintenance that came with the Q105, the old ship still holds a place in Bracewell’s heart, he told the audience.
“Listen, this vessel to me…I loved the boat, just loved it. It treated us so well and the workmanship was just incredible,” Bracewell said. “When I started, I didn’t know if I was going to be in business for five years or five minutes. And here I am almost of retirement age and still going strong.”
He also noted his appreciation to Sombra Museum for keeping the memory of the Q105 alive. “I’m very very thankful that this museum has seen fit to preserve a little bit of the history of the Fairmile built in Sarnia, and my business,” he said.
The legacy of the Duc D’Orleans is its innovative design and its incredible longevity, Bracewell said. The longevity of the ship is something that the Sarnian shipbuilders who made the craft back in 1943 nor the sailors in the Q105 patrolling the Atlantic during the Second World War could probably never have envisioned, he said.
“Just imagine back in World War Two, you’re out patrolling to make sure that there are no submarines. I just can’t imagine any of those guys thinking, ‘hey, in 50 or 60 years from now there will be people on here drinking beer and going for a boat ride’. I just can’t fathom that,” he said.