Bigwin Inn Ferry Restoration - Oct. 2006

The Bigwin Inn Ferry which transported guests and employees to Bigwin Island from the mainland when I was there in the early 60s, is being restored to her former glory, after apparently sitting submerged just offshore on the north side of the island for a number of years. Anyone who worked there for a year or two could have ridden on it anywhere up to a couple of hundred times. Whether going to the Empire Hotel for a few drafts, or going home to Toronto for a weekend, "The Bigwin" had to be taken, so I knew that boat real well! ;-)

This portion of a painting showing the ferry, is from the works of John Murden.
You can see more of his beautiful work at his website,
the URL of which is: http://www.murden.com/.

My friend Harold Gall (or Hap as we knew him then) and his wife Nancy, were visiting the Dorset area and happened upon the restoration site. Hap grabbed a few shots and was kind enough to send them to me for inclusion on this, my Bigwin site. His closeup photo of the completed frontal captain's cabin appears near the bottom of this page.

So what follows are those photos, in no particular order, showing the ferry in the process of it's restoration as of October 2006.

And now in 2010, almost completed

Thank you also to Paul Welsman for the use of two of his "restored ferry" photos, the first and third directly above..

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please click on the Bigwin ashtray just below!