Western Mariner – August 2019

48 WESTERNMARINER.COM AUGUST 2019 CANADA’S COMMERCIAL MARINE MAGAZINE

staged exhibitions, public lectures and demonstrations of

his abilities. He developed a sea anchor design for small

craft (one of the first) and promoted its use.

His charm and appeal caught the public imagination

wherever he landed, and his exploits were carried by the

news wire services and newspapers around the world. He

was befriended by celebrities, politicians and admirers,

and he was adopted by the yachting fraternity in almost

every port of call. When he lectured in New Zealand and

again in the UK he encountered the Antarctic explorer Sir

Ernest Shackleton, who took great interest in Voss’s tech-

niques, and was likely influenced and inspired by them

when he made his own decision to sail from Antarctica to

South Georgia Island in a small lifeboat to save his expe-

dition’s men.

After more than three years, Voss reached England from

Brazil. He glibly announced that he’d circumnavigated the

globe, but clearly he did not. This didn’t stop the tilikum

being exhibited at the huge Naval and Fisheries Exhibition

of 1905 in London. During the year of the exhibit Voss

seemed to have lost interest in the voyage, and he even-

tually sold the little vessel to a local yachtsman. As quickly

as Voss had achieved fame, the public interest moved on

to newer fads. Voss too moved on, to treasure hunting and

fur sealing in Japan.

Preserving history

The tilikum changed hands several times but was un-

successful as a yacht, and was eventually abandoned as a

derelict on the shore of the Thames. Such was the tilikum’s

fame, however, that when authorities from Victoria

learned of its fate they arranged for it to be returned to

BC on the deck of a freighter. The tilikum was exhibited

outside the old Crystal Gardens and later in Thunderbird

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The tilikum’s figurehead, shown while the vessel was on
display at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia’s former
Bastion Square location.
COURTESY MARITIME MUSEUM OF BC COLLECTION