Collingwood's former shipbuilders convened at the museum today for the second-annual Shipyards Social.
The event features a barbecue, various museum displays and, above all, a chance for former Collingwood Shipyards employees to get together.
Approximately 50 men and women gathered on the museum lawn to reminisce about the glory days when the bow of a ship would take shape at the top of Hurontario Street.
Groups of workers from various departments recalled stories and helped each other fill in the gaps where they couldn't remember a ship's name or some other detail.
John Taylor, a Wasaga Beach man who worked as a painter in the Shipyards from 1973 to 1985, remembered one ship painted in the wrong hue. Neither he nor the crowd of former Shipyard workers could remember the name of her, but that's no surprise. A paint mix up would stick in the minds of the painters and few others.
The bow of the ship was painted the right shade and the stern was the wrong colour. Taylor remembers the Shipyard bosses had to order a special mix of paint from Montreal, and Taylor was tasked with the job of using the new shade to blend the bow with the stern.
"They were supposed to be Algoma Blue," said Taylor. "The first coat was primer brown, then the first coat of blue, then another and the final coat was Algoma Blue, or it might have been Canadian Steamship Line Blue."
Whether from that incident or for other reasons, the paint foreman at the time was reassigned to guard duty. Taylor wasn't quite sure the truth of the matter, but rumours swirled.
Inside the museum, a movie filmed in 1980 details some of the final work done to a ship and captured the crowds and bustle of a side launch day. Many former workers sat in front of the screen pointing to various people or parts of the ship with their own story about their friends or a practical joke.
With the workers were their families – wives and children – many of whom had their own stories to tell of their husband, or father's work.
Bill Beauregard started at the shipyards in the 1940s "passin' rivets," and then became a welder.
"That's when I wanted to be a welder, but he wouldn't let me work at the shipyards," pipes in one of his two daughters.
Later, Beauregard became a production planner.
"They put me in the office to keep me away from people, I was a union officer," he laughed.
Collingwood Shipyards closed down in 1986. The Collingwood Museum hosted the first Shipyards Social last year and welcomed 40 former workers to the celebration.
