Shipwright Dave Sharp draws on traditional Japanese tools and techniques to restore the 63-year-old fishing boat.
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For shipwright Dave Sharp, most interesting aspect of restoring the 63-year-old fishing vessel the Crystal S is its cultural heritage.
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“The distinctive part about this boat is the traditional Japanese techniques that are used in it,” Sharp said.
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“Otherwise, it’s a pretty typical Fraser River salmon boat, though a really good example of the kinds of boats that evolved on the river.”
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For the last two years, Sharp and his team of volunteers have been restoring the ship, built in 1963 by Mamoru Sakamoto at Sakamoto Boat Works in Richmond. Sakamoto established the shop in 1950 after forced internment in the Okanagan during the Second World War. Over 26 years, he built 16 boats, ranging in size from 32 to 40-footers. The Crystal S is a 37-foot combination gillnetter and troller.
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Sharp has drawn on the Britannia Shipyards’s collections of traditional Japanese tools, using Japanese pull saws and caulking tools during the restoration. He is using an original fastening technique called umeki, which involves a distinctive plug and nail to join timbers — a small detail he says reflects the boat’s heritage.
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The biggest challenge, Sharp says, was rebuilding the Crystal S’s badly rotted ring stern while preserving its original shape and construction methods. Although essentially the entire rear half of the boat had to be replaced, much of the forward hull remains original, including the keel, ribs and planking.
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The results of Sharp’s work will be on display at this year’s Richmond Maritime Festival.
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Sharp built his first boat as a high school technical project, finishing construction of the 11-foot skiff in his parents’ basement in Ottawa.
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“I was heading down the path of mechanical engineering,” he said. “It didn’t take me too long to realize I wanted to do something a little bit more manual, maybe a little more creative.”
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In 2003 he earned a diploma in traditional boatbuilding from the International Boatbuilding Training College in Suffolk, England. His early career took him abroad and across Canada and to southern France, then back to Ontario. In 2008, he relocated to B.C.
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Sakamoto’s son Bud, who lives in Steveston, donated the Crystal S to the city around the time Sharp began working as Shipyard Operations Supervisor for the City of Richmond. Bud had used the boat to catch salmon for years, Sharp says.
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“It stopped fishing 10 or maybe 12 years ago now, when wooden boats tend to fall by the wayside. It takes a lot of maintenance to keep them up, and if they’re not working anymore, it becomes a pretty onerous challenge just to keep them going.”
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Other restored heritage boats on view alongside the Crystal S at this year’s festival will include the 104-year-old historic tugboat the SS Master.
