AD | ‘Star ship salvaged : Feature by Valorie Lennox The Review She’s been a television star, a fire ship and tow boat, carried dynamite, power cables and pic- nickers. _ But just before Christmas, the Hod sank at her mooring in Tse- hum Harbour off Resthaven Island. No one was more grieved than Stephen Franks, who owned the Hod for 11 years, until 1988. “The brave old girl survived some tough storms and took a beating on rocky shores loading @: and unloading when she should not have been there, she some- times met a few rocks she didn°t need to meet,” Franks said. But as part of the Pocket Bay Construction Limited team, she also salvaged fish boats, yachts, boathouses and an airplane dam- aged on the Hudson Island landing stip. She laid power and telephone cables and the Sidney sewer line outfall, Franks said. The 47-foot long, 16-foot wide ship was originally constructed in 1944 as a New Westminster fire boat. Retired after a big dock fire in 1974, the Hod was stripped of _. pumps and given a landing gate, converting the ship into a landing barge. In 1977 she was sold to Franks, owner of Pocket Bay Construction, and based in Sidney's Tsehum Harbour. “Her career became more var- ied and harder,” Franks said. Equipped with a deck winch and an A-frame bow hoist, she was used with an old log raft pile driver to put in docks, wharves, sea walls, floating breakwaters and moorings. She also transported building materials, trucks, tractors, bulldoz- ers, backhoes, excavators and drill _ Tigs. At times she travelled from the island to the mainland, working in the Fraser River to pick up pilings and fancy building rock or to tow SCOWS. With Dolphin Piledriving, she helped with projects all along the river, from Langley to White Rock. “But her main work was sup- plying at least 40 of the islands from Victoria to Nanaimo,’ Franks said. The Hod — appropriately named after the carrier used in brick-laying — carried construc- tion materials for Pocket Bay Con- struction to the islands. The company built reservoirs, swimming pools and fish pens. Franks remembers the Hod carry- ing a variety of cargo, including oil, antique cars and furniture. Hundreds of sheep, cattle, bison “@> and mouflons (the mountain sheep from North Africa), arrived on island homes aboard the Hod. Hay, feed, deer fencing and plantation trees were also deliv- ered by the Hod. Her moment of glory came when she was cast as a villainous ship dumping toxic wastes off the Florida Keys for the television series Sea Hunt — an episode which was filmed off Oak Bay. There was also real-life drama. “Once she ran the gauntlet of a fish boat blockade in Victoria Harbour and was bumped and pelted with eggs, bottles and sun- dry projectiles,” Franks said, add- ying, She understood the fish boats’ problems, but she was a working girl with a towing con- tract to fulfill.” = —sri “ ist afier sinking p =