Last Voyage of the "Straits Maru" (1956) - Royal BC Museum - AAAA2659

This video clip tells the story of the barge "Straits Maru" and her 1956 voyage from Vancouver Island to the breaker's yard at Osaka, Japan, loaded with scrap iron. She was towed there by the Victoria-based deep-sea tug "Sudbury", a converted Royal Canadian Navy corvette. The clip is an excerpt from the promotional film "Saga of the Sudburys" (1960), produced for Island Tug & Barge by Parry Films Ltd. (The eventful sea voyage is documented in amateur footage shot by Captain W.H. Blagborne, skipper of the "Sudbury".) The "Straits Maru" had begun her career in 1870 as the iron-hulled ocean liner S.S. "Parthia", built in Scotland for Cunard's trans-Atlantic service. 86 years later, after serving on both the Atlantic and Pacific, and many years on the Pacific coast route to Alaska, she began her last voyage.