Tall Ship BLACK JACK

Despite the rain and overcast skies, the tall ship brigantine BLACK JACK proudly sits along side a barge at the Britannia Yacht Club in Ottawa. Operated by the not-for-profit Bytowne Brigantine Foundation, the 87' BLACK JACK spends her summer months as a sail training vessel for area youth and one year when my daughter Lauren was in sea cadets, we sailed up the Ottawa River together on this fine tall ship.
When built in Scotland in 1904, the name of the steel-hulled vessel was G.B. PATTEE II and she worked the upper Ottawa River as a logging tug based at Quyon, Quebec. Driven aground and abandon some time after WWII, the derelict tug was recovered in 1950 by Ottawa area construction company owner and renown WWII Royal Canadian Navy hero, Captain Thomas George Fuller who converted her into a brigantine rig family yacht. The BLACK JACK began her current career as a sail training vessel in 1983 when she was donated to the then newly formed Bytown Brigantine Foundation.

BLACK JACK was also a subject for my 2011 Christmas card paintings,
"Making Ready for Winter"
from a photo I took of her at Britannia Yacht Club in 2005.