Sunny Island, a packer from the Japanese Lost Fleet

Speakers: Duncan MacLeod, Curator of the Vancouver Maritime Museum; and Charles Moore, Maritime Archaeologist, Golder and Associate

Topic: Sunny Island, a packer from the Japanese Lost Fleet

Description: Charles and Duncan will describe the fascinating story of the Sunny Island which was built in 1929 in Ritherdon Bay, Barkley Sound by Jirokichi Arimoto, a Japanese Boat Builder. The 78’ Sunny Island was used as a packer until it was abandoned near the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, at the mouth of the Fraser River, when the Japanese fishing fleet was seized in World War 2. That seizure is the subject of an exhibit at the Vancouver Maritime Museum opening in the spring of 2017. The remains of the Sunny Island are surprisingly intact and will be recorded as part of a UASBC/VMM Field School in the late Spring of 2017. That field school will focus on the midship area where Jirokichi Arimoto changed from a North American shipbuilding technique to a Japanese shipbuilding technique. How or why that change was made and how it was abandoned is a mystery. See: http://abcmi.ca/nikkei-built-wreck-gives-up-japanese-boatbuilding-secrets/