The Phoebe is a historic 48-foot steam launch built in 1914 in Kingston, Ontario, at the Davis Dry Dock Co. Ltd. She measures 48 feet in length, with a beam of 9 feet and a draft of 4 feet. The Phoebe has a 65 horsepower Davis compound steam engine and, at that time, an advanced 200 psi Davis Water Tube Safety Boiler. A 36 inch three bladed propeller rotates at 190 rounds per minute and gives the boat a speed of 10 knots or almost 20 km per hour. She was repatriated from the United States in 1979 as a Canadian National Treasure, with major funding from the Canadian Department of National Museums. The Phoebe is currently owned by the City of Kingston.

The Phoebe was built as a retirement gift by Andrew Carnegie the famous industrialist and philanthropist and other friends for John Brashear, astronomer and Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, USA. The gift included a well-appointed boathouse.

John and Phoebe Stewart, his wife, were self-taught scientists who at the age of twenty married without the knowledge of their parents, and built telescopes in their spare time. John was a heavy equipment maintenance worker in the Pittsburgh steel mills from the age of eighteen to his fortieth. He built a name for himself in the amateur and professional world of astronomy with his precision instrument. He also invented early on a technique for depositing a thin layer of silver on his telescope mirrors, a technique that was used worldwide for a long time. He was invited to become Chief Instrument Maker at the Allegheny Observatory and left the Pittsburgh steel plants behind when he turned forty. He founded a large business for the design and manufacture of astronomical instruments and also became involved with the University of Pittsburgh where he was appointed professor of astronomy. Later he became Chancellor of the University, and guided the institution through a period of expansion and change, (ref. John A. Brashear of Pittsburgh, E.T. Brewster, McClure's Magazine 1911pp 639-651). They started taking summer vacations in the Muskokas in Canada when John turned fifty five in 1896. Three years later they bought Urania Island, " a veritable paradise in the Canadian wilderness" according to John. They enjoyed their cottage and entertained guests till Phoebe Brashear-Stewart died on September 23, 1910. John continued the tradition of summering in the Muskokas, till his death in 1920.

The Phoebe is a luxury day boat with a glass enclosed fore and aft cabin that can comfortably seat a party of 10 to 15 persons. Both cabins are mahogany panelled reflecting the ambiance of an age of relaxed elegance. They chose Mat Davis from Kingston, Ontario, as the builder of the boat. The Davis Company was famous throughout North America for its boat building, both large and small and they had established a special reputation among the affluent cottagers in the Muskoka area for their steam yachts and launches.

In 1939 Cameron Peck acquired the Phoebe. An American collector residing in the Muskokas, Peck eventually had one of the largest fleet of antique boats on the continent with seven steam yachts and 43-gasoline engine driven launches. Peck kept the Phoebe in immaculate condition, but he had to sell her in 1948 when he ran out of money maintaining his expensive hobby. The next owners were Warren Weiant and Frank Miller who took her to Lake Erie and installed a Poulson engine. She was hauled by truck from Lake Muskoka to Leamington where she was put in Lake Erie. The trip was reported in the local newspapers, and Warren Weiant III the son of the new owners wrote a captivating story about his experiences during the transport and the launching. This story and more can be found on the Phoebe Website, ( www.marmus.ca, home page, the Rebirth of the Phoebe).

The Phoebe in Put in Bay, on Lake Erie, Ohio, when she was owned by Warren Weiant Junior and Frank Miller in the late 1950's.

The next owners were the Black family in Mentor on the Lake, Ohio. Finally the last American owner was A. S. Wikstrom, a famous engineer and builder of dams. He re-fitted the launch with her original Davis engine and sailed her on Skaneateles Lake, part of the Finger Lakes in New York. Steve Wikstrom the son and his wife Ellen became renowned steamboat enthusiasts and when the Phoebe was repatriated in 1997 to her birth place Kingston, Ontario, Stephen assisted the local crew with overcoming the many peculiarities of steam propulsion.

In 1979, Jack Telgmann and Members of the Frontenac Society of Model Engineers, who restored the 1849 Pump House Steam Museum as a present for the City's 300th birthday in 1973, brought the Phoebe back to Kingston. He put the Phoebe through her paces in the 1000 Islands Region, and at sail pasts. In 1984 the Phoebe was the lead boat in the opening ceremonies in Ottawa at the celebrations of the 150th birthday of the Rideau Canal system. Shortly after she was put in storage in a boathouse behind the Pump House Steam Museum, on Ontario Street at Kingston.

In 1998 members of the 1000 Islands Antique Boat Museum Trust, a registered Canadian charitable organisation, drew attention to the needs of the Phoebe and offered to sponsor her restoration at the Clayton Antique Boat Museum. Clayton NY is also the Headquarters of the American Antique Boat Society. This plan changed into a project for the Phoebe's restoration at the Kingston Pump House Steam Museum, as part of the Marine Museum's plans for the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Centre. The restoration project was entered in the Millenium Commemorative Registry at Kingston City Hall in the year 2000. We are now entering our fifth year of restoration.

The 1998 condition

The author became involved with the Phoebe some time before his early retirement in 1997 some 13 years after she had last sailed in the Kingston waters. When she was checked out it was not a pretty sight. She was supported by three transverse 10 inch high steel I-beams one aft where the skeg and stern tube met the hull, one amidships, and one fore about a meter aft the stem. The level of Lake Ontario varies approximately a meter between low and high level and the Phoebe would have 30 centimeters of water in the bilge at the high level in the spring and early summer and would be dry in the fall and winter. The weight of the boiler estimated at 1.5 tons and the engine at about .75 ton had caused the severely rotted keel and keelson to sag between the supports and to hog amidships. The hull above the waterline was in remarkable good condition and the super structure was complete and recoverable. The Phoebe had been already structurally weak when she sailed in the Kingston area during the early 1980s. Members of the Frontenac Society of Model Engineers who operated the Pump House Steam Museum in Kingston, were also in charge of the upkeep of the Phoebe, and they had done a remarkably good job in sprucing her up for her task as an ambassadress for the museum but she was at the end of her life, without major restoration.

I decided to make the restoration an enjoyable retirement project. A few friends pitched in with cash donations for a start-up fund, and publicity in the local newspaper encouraged a few volunteer restoration enthusiasts to come forward. We received approval of our restoration plan from the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes, which managed the Pump House site and the Phoebe for the City of Kingston. The Mayor expressed surprise that the City was in possession of a steam yacht when the proposal came before Council. The Council however recommended speedy and grateful acceptance of our plan.

Stabilisation

The engine and boiler were lifted out through a carefully cut opening in the cabin roof and the boathouse roof onto a pre set foundation in the display yard beside the boathouse and behind the Pump House Steam Museum.

The rescue effort was continued immediately with the building of a steel support structure onto the existing transverse I-beams, so that the keel could be supported along its full length, and telescoping bilge supports could be put in along the port and starboard side of the hull. We added in total twelve bilge supports, a stern support and a stem support in addition to the full length keel support. An extensive steel cradle now supported the much lighter load of the wooden hull and cabins, stripped from all the machinery.

Dismantling

A small volunteer group of three, that later grew to thirteen volunteers, proceeded to remove all the cabin bulk heads, the cabin floors, and "scooped out the rotten keelson, floors, keel and rib sections in the bilge area that had flooded and dried out twice a year over the last thirteen years. The structural parts had been so often repaired in the past that the keel was a patchwork of bits and pieces, bolted together with magnificent bronze bolts right beside the original galvanised steel lag bolts. This of course had created a textbook example of galvanic corrosion of the steel bolts and nails in the surrounding wood.

The fact that the keelson and keel were so weak had in fact saved the shape of the hull above the waterline. The heavy boiler and engine supported by the long and strong boiler and engine support beams had pushed the hull down causing the keel and keelson to sag and hog independently from the hull planking above the waterline. In other words the bilge area was crushed but the hull above the waterline had remained intact by the narrow borderline between rotted bilge and sound topsides. When we finished the clean up we were left with two halves of the hull supported by the new steel cradle and the installation of a new keel could begin.

Reconstruction

The keel was made of white oak, 4x8 inches in cross section. It was 37 feet long and came in two sections foot long. We were lucky that the forefoot was still intact and we could scarf the new keel into this section. The wooden stern tube had to be rebuilt and connected to the new keel. We replaced all the floors, 2x4 inch white oak, which were notched to fit over the keel. On top of this came the new Douglas Fir keelson, an impressive 4x8 inch beam, over the full length of the boat, which was build up from two sections, scarfed in the aft area. Most ribs were sistered with 1.25x1.5 white oak pieces, mostly 3 to 4 feet long, steam bend. Two boiler support beams each 4x8 inch and 17 feet long Douglas Fir were mounted on the port and starboard side. This completed the structural framework of the hull and we noticed the strength and stiffness increasing with each part installed.

Brian McClellan and Marco Bonometti from the Apprentice Shop of the Atlantic Challenge Foundation in Rockland, Maine discuss the replacement of the propeller bearing base. The apprentices came to help us from the USA on an exchange program, funded by the Community Foundation of Greater Kingston.

Documentation

From the beginning we documented all the parts we removed by attaching a label and by photographing each part and the area it came from. We did not save on film and later used a digital camera to document the unsightly rotted bits and pieces that we removed. This has been one of our most important measures because four years later when we finally are putting the puzzle back together the photographic and written record has saved us many times from making mistakes or from not knowing what comes next in the restoration process. The documentation also made it possible to remain faithful to the construction methods of the original boat builders from the early 1900s. A most impressive effort by Dr. Don McLachlan and his wife Mary, of Toronto, gave us the lines of the Phoebe. The Davis Dry Dock Company had ceased business in the 1920s and the few company documents that were used at the time had been destroyed. The company did not need the lines drawings as they used an upside down building method of launches based on stations. In this manner the builders could easily respond to the wishes of the owners by building launches of different length by simply extending the distance between stations. The maximum width of the boats was 9 feet as the launches were transported to the Muskokas by rail car. Don and Mary are serious steam launch historians, and Don has built several models of launches from the UK, the USA and Canada. The Phoebe was the object of his latest efforts. In the fall of 1998 Don and Mary devoted several days to the measuring of the lines of the boat. A year later Philip Gilesse a well-known small boat historian in Kingston used these lines to draw the formal lines plan. Philip made more measurements and included some information from the author to approximate the original shape as close as possible. The lines plan is now available at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.

Future plans

The restoration site is a working display for the visitors to the Marine Museum and the Pump House Steam Museum. Many steamboat enthusiasts ask us when she will be ready to go back in the water. We believe that we will have the Phoebe hull and cabins restored to a functional state towards the end of 2002. We have invested 9000 hours so far and we expect to add another 3000 hours in 2002. We need then to address the restoration of the boiler. The engine has been restored to a running condition and it is a crowd pleaser at the live steam weekends that are held three times per year at the Pump House Steam Museum. Should we return the Phoebe to the water or should we preserve her in an interesting Edwardian static display? The Kingston Harbour and St. Lawrence River is a fairly harsh environment for a tender boat that was designed for a limited lifespan on smaller inland lakes. We have a running debate on our website and anyone who wants to add to the arguments are welcome. We have some impressive articles about this argument posted on our website, one is by Don McLachlan on stability, and the other is by Dr. David Wanklyn who volunteered as crew on the Phoebe and who is a retired physicist and steam buff. In any case the final word would have to come from the Curator and Board of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes who must recommend any proposal for the future of the restored Phoebe to the Council of the City of Kingston for approval.

(Back in Kingston in her slip at the Pump House Steam Museum, where the Phoebe is being restored. This sensitive drawing was made in 1982 by well known printmaker and illustrator David H. Smith , Sydenham, Ontario.