HUNTER BOATS

The last great 85-foot pleasure cruiser from Ditchburn Boats was commissioned by John Furlong of Kenora for pleasure and business on Lake-of-the-Woods.

Having located on the Trent-Severn so he could deliver anywhere, Ditchburn had to calculate clearances along the Canadian National Railway from the lakehead to Lake-of-the-Woods before commencing construction of the $75,000 craft.

The Grace Anne II, named after Furlong's wife, was christened by Herb Dirchburn's daughter as she slid into Couchiching waters for the 1,285-mile cruise to the lakehead. At the same time, Ditchburn launched his last 117-foot patrol boat for the federal government. Grace Anne II carried 1,000 gallons of fresh water, 1,000 gallons of gasoline and had a cruising range of 1,000 miles.

On May 26, 1932, a receiving order was made against Ditchburn Boats Limited under the Bankruptcy Act. The stock market crash of '29 had also terminated the market for large custom pleasure craft.

Ditchburn had not seen the handwriting on the wall. He built a new expanded plant, loading himself with debt, just before the crash. He re-organized and built a last launch for John Henry Molson of Montreal in May 1937 and three 64-foot hulls for the RCMP. He moved to Trenton in '39 and there he produced craft for the air force and navy, for the war effort, but that is a story for another day.

Out of the "Ditchburn ashes" in Orillia, rose a new boat builder, remembered as Hunter Boats. Its story is told by Donald A. Hunter, one of the principals. When Ditchburn went into receivership, Alistair P. Hunter, Ditchburn's superintendent of construction, bought the buildings. Alistair Hunter had been building interesting "new design" things pretty well all his life. He became supervisor of motors for Ditchburn, moving to Orillia from Haliburton in '29. Through the Great Depression, his ingenuity kept boat building alive here, building canvas canoes, and then hiring Bert Hawker, a former boat designer for Herb Ditchburn. Together they designed and built a craft well known in these parts, "Miss Orillia" for Rolland Boat Lines to cruise Lakes Couchiching and Simcoe. Throughout this period, Hunter Boats built a number of sizeable craft for well-to- do clientele and also 26-foot sport fishing boats, as well as conducting a storage, service and boat repair business.

In 1939, when the Canadian government began to gear up for the war effort, nobody was more ready than Orillia's Hunter Boats. It began with the conversion of a 58-foot pleasure craft, donated by Col. Blackstock of Toronto, into a fighting patrol craft for the Canadian navy, which at that time had six river class destroyers and perhaps 20 other boats, including all harbour craft. A number of contracts for small vessels followed, culminating in the construction of a number of 112-foot, fast motor patrol boats of a class called "Fairmiles."

For the rest of the war, Hunter Boats worked on navy, army and air-force boats of various specifications while continuing to build Fairmiles, two at a time, in the excellent facilities acquired from Ditchburn.

In 1941, the staff grew from six people to 125. They incorporated as Hunter Boats Limited with A. P. as president and D. A. as vice. Then they led the Fairmile parade to produce a fast efficient and capable small patrol craft to take the place of the corvette in patrolling the entrances to Canada's harbours, as, lacking destroyers to do the convoy work, and without the capacity to build destroyers, Canada had no recourse but to press its corvettes into convoy duty, however inadequate they were for the job.

Hunter also built pontoons for the army to use to support temporary bridges in the advance across Europe. Pressing ahead with the construction of Fairmiles, it was often necessary for Hunter to create patterns for underwater fittings. Hunter engaged Glen Mallory of Gravenhurst as superintendent of construction.

Meetings of plant managers from eight other yards were held frequently to speed production. The Ontario Fairmile Association was formed, cutting red tape in construction of the 59 Ontario-built Fairmiles. Hunter's was the first Fairmile launched in Canada, numbered Q 060, on Sept. 10, 1941. She was the only Fairmile ever given a name. She was christened the "Mariposa Belle".