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Ship of the Month - cont'd. 10. ning with the 1962 issue of that register, her owner was shown as the Ameri­ can Holiday Car & Ferry Co. Ltd., St. Thomas. The same entry would show each year through 1968, after which PELEE was dropped from the List of Shipping. The ownership change makes it seem likely that Barrie had some hope for a new service for his steamer at one point, but if so, nothing ever came of it. It has been said that Vince Barrie even offered to give PELEE to anybody who might want her, but that nobody ever came forward. What a shame! Another unsourced clipping, this one from Ivan Brookes' 1963 scrapbook, re­ ported: "Wind Halts Salvage Job. Port Stanley, Dec. 17th - (CP) - Strong offshore winds yesterday prevented any efforts to free the passenger steamer PELEE which broke from its moorings in the harbour here and drifted onto a sunken dredge early last week. Chief Engineer Fred Gerster, of Port Stanley, said attempts to free the vessel will have to wait until the wind shifts. An attempt was made Sunday to tow the ship off the sunken wreck with a fish tug and tow truck. " A subsequent report: "Tow Truck Frees Vessel. Port Stanley, Dec. 24 - (CP) - The passenger steamer PELEE was freed yesterday from the sunken dredge she ran onto in Port Stanley harbour two weeks ago after snapping her moorings in a high wind. The steamer was pulled free by a tow truck equipped with a winch. The operation was helped by an onshore breeze which raised the water level by four inches. Earlier attempts had been made during prevailing off­ shore winds. " The sunken derelict onto which the wind-blown PELEE had stumbled was the 1902-built, 107. 7 foot, government dredge P. W. D. NO. 117, (a) SIR WILFRID, which sank on May 29, 1952. Salvage efforts by McQueen Marine in 1952, by Pyke Salvage in 1953, and by McNamara Construction Co. in 1954, all had failed to remove the wreck completely from Port Stanley harbour. This dredge had a most interesting history, and readers should watch for it as a future "Scanner" feature. In any event, her dash for freedom foiled, the freed PELEE was returned to her berth at Port Stanley. No prospective taker coming forward for her, she was sold in 1966 to Strathearne Terminals Ltd., of Hamilton, for scrapping, but she was not towed to that company's usual scrapping berth at the east end of Hamilton harbour. Instead, she remained at Port Stanley. Her machinery was removed and her cabins burned off, but the scrapping of the hull itself progressed very slowly as the remains were hauled out on the beach. Most of PELEE was gone by the mid-1970s. One reminder of the old steamer, however, lingered on for many years. A small section of the PELEE's forefoot (the lower portion of her stem) was, inexplicably, left lying on the beach at Port Stanley and was not hauled away with the rest of the scrap metal. There it still was lying in December of 1989. It disappeared early in 1990, and with that, the last bit of PELEE passed into history. * * * Ed. Note: This two-instalment feature began as a simple suggestion for a "Ship of the Month" made by member John Thompson, of Toronto. Your Editor was looking for a "simple to prepare" passenger ship history for the January issue, and Capt. Gerry Ouderkirk instigated the "PELEE pursuit". It turned into a monster that very soon began to take on a life of its own, exceeding in size what could be presented in one issue. And all of this for an appa­ rently nondescript little ferry steamer! Preparing this feature was, however, one of the most interesting projects we ever have undertaken in almost 32 years of editing this journal. Since the project began during December, not one single day has passed without some­ thing being done on the feature's preparation. And we could not possibly have done it at all on such short notice without the benefit of electronic communications. In fact, this is the very first "Scanner" feature ever put