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Vessels Built by Harris Built Products Ltd.

compiled by John M. MacFarlane 2017

The Company signboard in Lantzville BC. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

Roberta Eisler recalls "Harris Built Products Ltd. was founded in 1965 in Lantzville, BC by my Dad, Sheldon J. Harris. The plant was located in the Metromart Industrial Village (8 miles north of Nanaimo on Island Highway) at Lantzville BC. He had the company until he retired in 2007. He started out building vessels for logging and fishing, and then expanded to car dollies, portable cement mixers, fireplace inserts, decorative railings and stairways, and anything else that he could dream of that was made out of steel. If someone came to him with an idea, he would fuss around with a pencil and paper until he could make it a reality."

The Normac XII in 1972 with builder/designer Sheldon Harris (on left) and David Dick (on right) (Photo from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The fishing vessel Wanderlust (with Sheldon Harris on ladder) under renovation. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The fishing vessel Wanderlust from the stern while under renovation. The company undertook repair work as well as original construction. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The fabrication shop is just visible behind the new Recovery II with Sheldon Harris inspecting the finished product. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The Harris 15’ Model Boom Boat. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The Harris 15’ Model Boom Boat. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

Customer Wally Newman with the newly finished boom boat Samum Point. Newman purchased two of these vessels. (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The specification sheet for the boom boat. (No record appears to exist for the number of these boats that were constructed.) (Photo courtesy of Roberta Eisler from the Sheldon J. Harris Collection)

The specifications for the boom boat were:

• Length 15’, width 5’ 11", draft 23"
• Depth 20" (steel mesh prop. guard extends 12" below hull)
• 3/16" steel plate on hull
• 3/16" x 2 x 2 angle iron framing
• 3 pusher bars on pointed bow
• 1 pusher bar on stern
• 1 – 1/2" x 2 x 2 single guard on each side
• 3/4" pipe on cap rail
• Large propeller guard
• Ball bearing and nylon bushing turn table
• Rubber mats or galvanized steel mesh
• Large stabilizer fin under hull
• Standard fuel tank – 5 gallon capacity
• Price: as described $1,500 (plus tax)
• Motor optional: Suggested 45hp Chrysler $707.40 (additional)

Author’s Note: This is a partial list (work in progress).

Vessel Images: Can you help us fill gaps in the vessel images in the database? If you have pictures of missing vessels that you have taken and would be willing to contribute to the database to make it more complete all our users would be very grateful. Please send them to admin(at)nauticapedia.ca

Note to Reader: Vessel names containing Roman numerals in parentheses (e.g. Floater (II)) indicates more than one vessel in the database with the same name. The numerals in parentheses are NOT part of the vessel name but are used to distinguish one vessel from another in the database.

To quote from this article please cite:

MacFarlane, John M. (2017) Vessels Built by Harris Built Products Ltd. Nauticapedia.ca 2017. http://www.nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Vessel_Builders_Harris_Built_Products.php

Site News: April 14, 2026

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 102,241 vessel histories and the mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,625 entries. The vessel database also includes 17,072 wreck records and 17,332 images.

Recently Bill Clearihue (Toronto), Kyle Stubbs (Seattle), Captain George Schneider (San Diego), Tad Roberts (Gabriola Island) and Don Feltmate (Nova Scotia) have all joined the team as research correspondents.

My thanks to Vancouver photographer Ray Warren who is beginning the long process of filling gaps in the photo record of the vessel histories in the vessel database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to our chief Canadian contributor, Mike Rydqvist McCammon, for the hundreds (approaching a thousand) of photos he continues to contribute to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. He provides advice whenever needed. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Thanks to John Spivey (our long term U.S. contributor) who is in his 6th year of fact checking all of the entries in the vessel database, one-by-one. This has resulted in thousands of updates (beyond counting) and corrections which might never have occurred without his intervention.

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