Monte Christo

In the late 1960s, word of mouth lead me to where the Monte Christo was being built. She was a Barkentine of 115' on deck, planked with mahogany on sawn Douglas fir frames. Four disparate dreamers had combined efforts to bring this tall ship into being. Alex Brigola, a Greek of lousy disposition, was the main push to build this ship. Joe was the partner with the building skills and like most builders was easy going and calm, confident in his skills. Jri Novak was the muscle. He was a deserter from the Czechoslovakian army and was a whirlwind of energy and raw strength, with flowing blond hair. The fourth partner, whose name I can't recall, was of equally foul temper as Alex and rode a Triumph motor cycle. Then of course there was a handful of dreamers and waterfront hangers-on of whom I was one.
 
I found out about the ship from my friend Bob whose brother Bill was likewise working at building the Monte Christo in any spare time that he had. Bob and Bill's dad had a bare hull that he was finishing off at Mosquito Creek Yacht Basin in North Vancouver. Bill and I, being the youngest of the group, were interested in how a traditional vessel went together. The building of the hull was the same as any wooden vessel we had been involved with but just much larger. But the rigging was where traditional, almost lost, skills came into use. All the hardware had to be fabricated, by Joe, for the spars for the square sails, for the stays and bowsprit hardware, for the shrouds and ratlines, for the blocks and lines and pin rails. Shrouds of 1" wire rope had to be "wormed and parcelled with the lay, turn and served the other way", as was the ages old method. Everything was covered in, rare today, Stockholm tar.
 
In time, the Monte Christo was ready to be launched to be rigged, but the problem was that she was a quarter of a mile from the water. The Canadian National Railway lent us the ties and rails to build a railway to Burrard Inlet. Someone lent a front-end loader so the work was not entirely by armstrong. I don't know who of the partners had a friend in the provincial government but highways minister Phil Gagliardi, an ordained minister of a church in Kamloops, came to bless the vessel, and my Canadian flag draped the bowsprit. Phil Gagliardi was of that larger-than-life era of politician who were a little outrageous in what they said and did but by-and-large were important to the development of the province. If what they did in the 1950's and 60's were left to the study-it-to-death and contract-it-out-overseas politicians of today, nothing of any size and worth would have been accomplished. Indeed, today's politicians have dismantled some of what was accomplished at great expense to the province.
 
After the launching and the obligatory visits onboard, we were able to spend the first night afloat on the Monte Christo. She was then towed to Burrard Drydock to have one of the dockside cranes slide the sticks into her. Now, quite a few old retired seamen, who had learned the trade from the iron men of sail, appeared to help rig the masts and tension the shrouds and stays. Everything was done by eye. She had to look right, not some copy from a book.  This is where I left the Monte Christo as I had gotten a job with Federal Fisheries at the Research Station in Nanaimo.
 
Unfortunately, after the ship had been rigged and the sails bent, Alex Brigola tried to motor her singlehandedly through the First Narrows, against the tide, and had to be rescued and towed back to dock. This was deemed as running out on the other partners and of course it went to court. Ultimately, she was sold and the new owners sailed her into the South Pacific. The last I heard of the Monte Christo was that she had struck a reef near Fiji and was a total loss.