Canadian Pacific skipper Richard Walgate

[Robert Walgate]

Hi there mariners! Anyone have any recollections of my late father, Richard Walgate, who became Commodore of CPS in the 1960s? As a boy I sailed with him a couple of times on the Beavers and the Empresses. Much preferred the Beavers with the wild sea, no passengers and a small crew. We once passed by a hurricane, on enormous swell - the wave tops were visible above the mast from the bridge. The Beaver (-glen or -fir or -ash, I don’t remember) rode over the top of the waves like a seesaw, crashing into the troughs with a gigantic splash, visibly bending up the bow so the ship shivered lengthways a few times after each wave, ringing like a giant bell. Hanging onto the rail over the stern I heard the props thrashing out of the water as we rode over the tops. Stayed there for a hour, enjoying the sea. Surprising I wasn’t lost overboard - it was only a single rail - but an adventure. I did a bit of apprentice navigating with stars, sextant (I still have that sextant), chronometer and charts, which was risky but we still got to Montreal! Dad said “his” star was Altair. Seeing the first lighthouses of Newfoundland, and their local accents on the radio, after five days at sea, was a thrill. Best wishes to you all. Robert Walgate

[John Arton]

I sailed with a captain walgate on the empress of Canada in 1973?, the last year of Atlantic crossing before she was laid up prior to her sale to carnival .
A quiet man who did not like confrontation. I was on 12-4 watch with the 2nd mate, I was in the exhalted position of 5th mate.
Neither of us had been on the Empress ships previously, I got a bollocking off the captain for being late in blowing the ships whistle passing the house of the editor/owner? of the only purely English language newspaper in Montreal, a long traditional salute to the person, that nobody had told us about. He was relieved by captain bill williams who he apparently was in competition with to be commodore captain.
Rgds
J.A