Ship Name: Malahat
Vital Statistics:
Length: 246’ Beam: 43.9’ Draft: 21’ Tonnage: 1,543
Hull: wood – Douglas fir
Power source: Twin Bolinder semi-diesels delivering 320 B.H.P.; sails
Built: Cameron Genoa Mills Shipbuilders Ltd. Victoria, BC, 1917, for the Canada West Coast Navigation Company.
Malahat was a large 5-masted, auxiliary-engined schooner built during World War I. She was one of 12 similar ships built in Victoria and North Vancouver (Burrard Dry Dock No 2 Yard). This pattern of ships became know as “Mabel Brown” types, after the wife of HW Brown, the owner of Canada West Coast Navigation Company, for whom the ships were built. She was built for the lumber trade but was soon used in a much more profitable venture, rum running.
What was the significance of Malahat?
- one of the most successful rum running ships on the West Coast, delivering more contraband liquor than any other ship
- the first self-propelled log barge
- she was one of the last sailing ships built on the coast, signifying the end of an era
What was prohibition?
The Temperance movement in both Canada and the United States had been advocating the control of the use of alcohol since the early 1800’s. The result of their efforts was the prohibition of the sale of alcohol. Prohibition first appeared in Washington state in 1916 and the rest of the US in 1920 with the Volstead Act, in effect until 1933. Prohibition in Canada was for a much shorter period, beginning at the end of WWI and ending in British Columbia in 1920 with the introduction of government liquor stores. For the next 13 years “Rum Running” of liquor from Canada or from Canadian ships to American boats off the US coast was a profitable business. Unlike the activities on the Atlantic, the Pacific Rum Running trade was much smaller and thus immune from Mafia interests.
How did Rum Running work?
Both large and small vessels were involved in moving alcohol across the border, including small launches, syndicates of fish boats which passed liquor from boat to boat in the dark, and larger ‘mother ships’ like Malahat, anchored in international waters.
Malahat could hold as many as 60,000 cases of liquor and was anchored in “Rum Row” (near the Faralon Islands, northern California and the Mexican coast) for as long as one year. Smaller vessels would come out from the coast and pick up liquor which was transferred to the boats in either boxes or burlap sacks (12 bottles to the sack). The sacks were easier to swing between the ships and store on board but there was a lot of breakage.
How did they avoid being caught?
Malahat was anchored in international waters, so the US Coast Guard could not board them (legally). To ensure they were selling the alcohol to trustworthy clients a stack of bills would be ripped in two before Malahat left Vancouver, with half the bills staying on board the ship and the other half given to clients. When Malahat reached Rum Row, the smuggler would present his half of the bill to the crew and if it matched a bill on board the vessel the crew knew it was ok to transfer the liquor. If the Coast Guard was seen they would either be paid off with liquor or the crew would dump phony parcels of whisky over board. At night the crew would set flares out on the water to look like a ship’s running lights while the lights on board the ship were extinguished.
What happened to Malahat?
With the end of prohibition Malahat was converted into the first self-propelled log barge. En route to pick up her first load of wood, loggers modified the ship, removing between deck beams and widening hatches to fit the large logs. A 50’ hole was carved into the deck. Malahat could carry Ѕ million board feet of lumber (approximately enough wood to build 100, 1500 sq ft houses). She worked as a self-propelled barge for nine years, then her engines were removed (1957) and she became a barge pulled behind a towboat. In March 1944, while being towed in Barkley Sound (west coast of Vancouver Island) she began taking on water and foundered. She was a hazard to navigation and was moved to Powell River where she became part of the breakwater.
For more information
Henry, T. Westcoasters: Boats That Built BC. Harbour Publishing, 1998.
Miles, Fraser. Slow Boat on Rum Row. Harbour Publishing. 1992
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