Sechelt boat builder Larry Westlake has long been fascinated with the traditional West Coast rowboat design known as a handliner: a sleek, double-ended boat which is fast, seaworthy and beautiful.
From about 1900 to World War II, fishermen used handliners, also known as hand trollers, to fish the waters of Georgia Strait commercially under oar power.
"Because of what they had to do, they were superb rowboats," said Westlake. "Most of the boats were built by fishermen themselves."
Westlake began studying this boat design about 15 years ago and now has created a modern version of this classic rowboat. Westlake's prototype, a 15-foot plywood vessel named Brightsides, won the Best of Show award in the recent Small Wooden Boat Heritage Festival in Gibsons.
Westlake is also part of a historical research project on handliners, together with marine archeologist Charles Moore and a group of fellow enthusiasts in the Oarlock and Sail Wooden Boat Club in Vancouver.
In the Georgia Strait area, only 11 handliners are documented to still exist, but Westlake believes many others survive in private ownership despite being 60 years old or older.
"They're in somebody's boat shed," said Westlake. "Because they were such superb rowboats, they've often been really carefully preserved. There's probably people who have them and don't know what they've got."
Traditional handliners were 12 to 17 feet long, though 14 feet seemed to be the preferred length. Some were fitted for a small spirit sail. Handliners were often built right on the beach, with wood cut from drift logs by hand. Under these circumstances, said Westlake, the boats would be skillfully built with carvel, lapstrake or nailed-strip construction and somewhat roughly finished. Fishermen made do with the materials they had at hand.
"A week or so of laborious whipsawing wouldn't daunt them at all. They didn't have many other options, especially during the 30s," said Westlake. "Men would share the knowledge and build in groups. You might have to buy nails, but you could put it together without buying anything else if you didn't paint it."
Handliners were common on the West Coast as far north as Alaska. Salmon fishermen would follow the fish from hotspot to hotspot throughout the season, living in tents on the beach or in seasonal villages. They trolled or fished with handlines dropped over the sides, and old boats show grooves in the gunwales where the line cut into the wood as fish were hauled in. The fish were top quality and commanded higher prices because they were handled individually rather than netted.
Handliners survived long after the arrival of gasoline engines because fishing licences cost only $5 for boats without motors. For many men, it was the only way to get a start in fishing.
Though the boats were common in their day, with hundreds built on the Sunshine Coast alone, few have survived. Two handliners built in Gibsons are in the collection of the Vancouver Maritime Museum but are not on display. One fine example that is on public display is at the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. That 14-foot, seven-inch boat was built in 1934 by the Roberts Creek writer Hubert Evans, who used beachcombed logs for the smooth-hulled carvel construction. Boat lovers have made pilgrimages from Vancouver specifically to see and examine Evans' boat. It was an inspiration for Westlake as he created his own handliner design.
Westlake said the handliner shares many characteristics with traditional Native dugout canoes, as well as with sealing boats used in northern B.C. and Alaska and the "pea pods" used for lobstering and inshore fishing on the East Coast. The handliners were scaled down so they could be handled by a single fisherman, rowing alone for long days in unpredictable weather.
The handliner is double-ended for maximum seaworthiness. Since they were powered only by oars while fishing and often fished by trolling for hours on end, they needed to move quickly with little effort. Westlake's design preserves those qualities while using modern materials and construction methods, making the boat lighter and easier for people to build themselves.
"I've preserved the shape, the layout and the use," said Westlake. "Only the construction is different."
Westlake uses a plywood epoxy composite construction, popularly know as "stitch and glue," which makes a boat much lighter than pure fibreglass. He estimates Brightsides weighs only about 120 pounds.
Westlake hopes to see a revival of handliners for recreational rowing. "It's almost ideal. I saw one in the Save the Strait marathon years ago that just trounced a group of kayakers. The guys in the kayaks were really stunned," said Westlake. "As a culture, we've turned our backs on the ocean. I want to see more of it. I guess we'll never see fleets of hundreds and hundreds of these boats going down Georgia Strait again, but it might be nice to see a few score of them."
The last known original handliner was built in 1965. Westlake is seeking any examples of surviving handliners, as well as photos of the boats in use or under construction. He can be reached at [email protected]. Marine archeologist Charles Moore can be reached at [email protected].
