Timmy is as clean and fresh as it was on that 1981 day it first splashed in Picton Harbour. I should know. I got a tour of Waupoos Island on the tug last week.

Dr. Clapp, a retired veterinarian, is carefully breaking in a new 16 horsepower Beta engine in the hopes he can pilot the tug back to its home dock at Picton Bay before the end of the season. It’s a seven-hour journey from the Waupoos Marina to the Prince Edward Yacht Club, one Dr. Clapp admits he will have to pack a lunch for.

What a long, strange trip it’s been for Timmy.

In the early 1980’s, County historian and columnist, Al Capon, profiled Dr. Clapp and the first craft produced by the Prince Edward Tug and Barge Company for the pages of Kingston’s Whig Standard. Dr. Clapp and George Henley obtained designs from MacNaughton Yacht Architects of Maine for an 18-foot tug boat. 

Eschewing the wooden hull plans, Mr. Henley welded a steel hull while Dr. Clapp built the plywood cabin and lined the interior with BC cedar. Timmy featured two sleeping berths, a concealed full-sized toilet and a storage tank. All the comforts of home.

“Timmy the Tug, the guys at Henley named it that after a children’s program on television at the time,” Dr. Clapp said. “They wrote it on the hull in chalk and it kind of stuck.”

Dr. Clapp and his late wife, devoted family physician Dr. Sally Sarles, motored up the Rideau Canal, down the Ottawa River and back to Prince Edward County via the St. Lawrence Seaway. The couple also enjoyed a trip up the Trent Severn Waterway to Honey Harbour and back.

In total, the Prince Edward Tug and Barge Company built a baker’s dozen tugs. Bob and Sally piloted one of its 33-footers to Fort Lauderdale and back one season.

It took almost 80 hours to scrape the muck, mud and leaves out of the hull.
The wheelhouse was ripped out and completely rebuilt.
The marine radio and all the wiring. The exhaust system.
Even the prop was swapped to better suit the new engine.
The original bell, the anchor and some of the cedar were salvaged.
Not much else.

Out Of The Blue

A boat-building hotspot a century ago, the industry has moved on from the County. Dr. Clapp hadn’t thought much about Timmy until 2015 when a phone call out of the blue informed him the boat was in Muskoka. A company was going to start a restoration process for a private owner.

But work never commenced. Eventually, Dr. Clapp and a neighbour drove up to cottage country last spring to find the boat in salvage shape. There was two feet of muck in the hull.

Dr. Clapp inquired to a nonplussed owner about taking Timmy back to Prince Edward County.

“Well, I’m not really interested in selling it. But if I was, I would only sell it to the person who built it,” the owner said.

“Well, that’s me.”

The following day, a transaction took place and hull #1 of the Prince Edward Tug and Barge Company was back in its founder’s hands.

Long Process

But that was only the start of what became a 14-month journey. Dr. Clapp’s friends and neighbours had their work cut out for them. Thanks to Waupoos Marina manager Joe Murray, there was a dedicated space in their warehouse to get to work. 

It took almost 80 hours to scrape the muck, mud and leaves out of the hull. Workers cut out and replaced the wheelhouse. Electrical components, including the marine radio and panel wiring, were changed out. All hoses and the exhaust system were replaced. Even the prop was swapped to better suit the new engine.

The original bell, the anchor and some of the cedar were salvaged. Not much else.

Headed For Home

If it weren’t for Dr. Clapp’s persistence, the tug would still be sitting on a Muskoka shoreline, silently awaiting the scrap yard.

But Timmy is reborn. A few folks who were present for the initial splashing of Timmy back in ’81 turned up for the re-splashing in late August. Dr. Clapp has his choice of first mates to accompany him every day as he tries to get hours on the Beta motor. He’s already made a trip over to Little Bluff and back. The boat handles two feet of chop with ease.

Eventually, Timmy and Dr. Clapp will make the big trip back to Picton. Will it be like the olden days, when the neighbourhood kids would see Doctors Clapp and Sarles come into harbour, and beg the skipper to blow the tug’s horn? You never know.

After all, the skipper admitted he never dreamed he would be back at Timmy’s wheel, cutting a straight line in County waters again.

“No, not at all,” he told the Gazette with a chuckle. “After all, I’m 94 years old.”

Only in body, Dr. Clapp.