Rainbow Skiff Joins the MMBC Fleet - The Maritime Museum of BC

News Release

For Immediate Release
30 April 2025

At the Maritime Museum of BC (MMBC), the spirit of traditional sailing has never abated. MMBC Board members prepared last month for a new addition to the MMBC fleet courtesy of the Ladysmith Maritime Society (LMS).

The museum’s existing fleet of sailing vessels Dorothy, Trekka, and Tilikum are joined this month by a new collaboration with LMS: a hand-built lapstrake Royal Navy skiff-dinghy built in the late 1800s.

The transfer of the skiff took place on March 12 in Ladysmith, with LMS President Jackie Elliott, MMBC Board Member Angus Matthews, historian and boatwright Robert Lawson, and the LMS volunteer crew in attendance.

1898 photo of the naval skiff-dinghy taken near Cole Island off Esquimalt, by a photographer named Franklin. Image courtesy of Robert Lawson.

About the Skiff

Smaller vessels such as this skiff-dinghy were found on Royal Navy warships from the 1870s to 1930s. This skiff-dinghy was likely built in Victoria or Esquimalt prior to the arrival of the Royal Canadian Navy’s first vessel in the Pacific Command, HMCS Rainbow. She was transferred from the Royal Navy in 1910. The skiff-dinghy was sold at auction with all of the HMCS Rainbow’s ship’s boats when the warship was scrapped in 1920. The intervening period is unclear: it could have been part of the inventory of the Esquimalt naval base when it was transferred to the Dominion of Canada in 1905, when Britain terminated its Pacific command.

The 16-foot skiff-dinghy made its way to LMS in 2010 after changes and refits by a number of owners, including by LMS volunteer, historian, and boatwright Robert Lawson. Lawson stewarded the vessel in 1999 and 2005 with over 700 hours of refit work, before donating it to LMS. A number of volunteers working on the MMBC’s Dorothy refit project were interested in completing the skiff-dinghy’s refit, and took on the project with generous community support.

West Wind Hardwood donated Afromasia wood to make the skiff-dinghy’s seats. 130 BF of teak decking salvaged from a steamer broken up in the 1930s were donated by the granddaughter of the man who salvaged it. A private donor paid for bronze castings and Burma teak for final finishing.

In the LMS workshop with the Royal Navy skiff-dinghy. Photo courtesy of MMBC.

About the Project

Bill Noon, Chair of the MMBC’s Collection Committee credits LMS’s volunteer efforts, and the strong relationship between the two maritime organizations with saving not one, but three heritage vessels: “The meticulous restoration of the Royal Navy skiff-dinghy is yet another remarkable accomplishment of the volunteers at LMS. This is the third, and oldest, restored vessel in the Maritime Museum of BC collection that has been saved by the close partnership between our institutions. On behalf of the people of British Columbia, we thank the crew in the prolific Ladysmith workshop.”

To date, LMS has refitted 1897 sailing vessel Dorothy, the Dorothy skiff, and the Royal Navy skiff-dinghy, all of which are part of the MMBC’s collection and actively sailing fleet. All are expected to appear on the docks at the museum’s 46^th annual Victoria Classic Boat Festival in Victoria’s Inner Harbour on Labour Day weekend, August 29-31, 2025.

LMS President Jackie Elliott shakes hands with MMBC Board Member Angus Matthews across the skiff-dinghy surrounded by the LMS volunteer crew on March 12, 2025. Photo courtesy of Bob Burgess.

About the LMS Volunteer Efforts

The LMS volunteer efforts to refit the skiff-dinghy have been detailed and thorough.

“Over the last few months, the volunteers removed the last of the paint inside, tightened existing and added new copper rivets where necessary, repaired broken seat risers and bilge stringers, made patterns for 6 bronze knees for the seats, made a set of beautiful teak floor boards and a teak keelson, made new seats, finished and polished new bronze knees and oarlocks, and are now engaged in making the stern seats and the 5 sets of teak gratings,” said Lawson.

“The MMBC is the primary custodian of maritime heritage on our coast,” said Noon, reflecting on the museum’s fleet of three sailing vessels, two skiffs. Moreover, the skiff-dinghy joins 35,000 objects, 554 linear feet of archives, and 15,000 photos in the collection that are actively preserved for the future and interpreted at events like the Victoria Classic Boat Festival, in exhibits and public programs in the museum gallery, and detailed online for researchers and maritime enthusiasts.

Lawson makes it clear that preserving this heritage for the future was the motivation for the refit project: “the Royal Navy skiff-dinghy is a fine and rare representative of the last years of hand-built lapstrake boats. It is a fantastic artefact and now properly belongs to all the people of British Columbia, thanks to the collaboration of the MMBC and the Ladysmith Maritime Society.”