In the summer of 1985, a young woman sporting a curly perm and tortoiseshell glasses could often be found sprawled on the faded goldenrod couch in her mother’s apartment on Pendrell Street. The couch was pushed up against the wall in the living room, which was plastered with a dizzyingly bold blue-and-white geometric wallpaper. On warmer days, the sliding door to the balcony overlooking English Bay would likely have been thrown open in the hope a breeze off the water could be tempted inside to cool the stifling room. From the couch, Moneca Morlin could look out at the harbour below. In mid-July, English Bay was busier than usual. Aside from the typical marine traffic consisting of sailboats, pleasure craft, and container ships passing in and out of the harbour, navy ships from around the world were beginning to arrive for Vancouver’s annual Sea Festival.
A copy of the Westender had found its way into the apartment. The weekly was promoting its Dial-A-Sailor program, by then a regular event at the Sea Festival. It read: “Vancouver has the opportunity to show its beauty, warmth and hospitality to our seafaring guests.” Over 2,000 sailors were coming to town, and Vancouver locals had the opportunity to meet up with the visiting mariners. Interested parties could fill out a form or call a number, indicating their name, address, contact, availability, number of sailors requested, and approximate age. The bottom of the form included the following prompt: “I would like to take a sailor to (tick one): dinner, shopping, BBQ, dancing, casino, an afternoon movie, sightseeing.” Below, there was a blank line to suggest applicants’ own preferred activity.
Moneca remembers it being her mother who convinced her to contact Dial-A-Sailor. The long, warm days had left her with too much free time. She would do it, she decided, but not without her sister, Maria. She picked up her mother’s rotary phone with its long winding cord and dialed her sister’s number. Maria was reluctant at first, but Moneca was determined. “Maria, we have to go dial a sailor,” she persisted. “We have to do this.” With a little persuasion, she finally relented.
Doug McClarty, who worked at the Westender for many years, was the driving force behind the Dial-A-Sailor scheme, though he notes that matching visiting sailors to locals in ports of call is a longtime tradition. Some of his colleagues at the Westender were skeptical about why they were tying up their phone lines for an initiative that brought in no money. McClarty saw things differently. For him, not only was the program an opportunity for community outreach, it was also a publicity stunt. He was right. In the years to come, the Westender would benefit from an abundance of free advertising thanks to the buzz surrounding Dial-A-Sailor.
In the summer of 1985, the Vancouver Sea Festival was well established and thriving—that year was also the Canadian Naval Service’s 75th anniversary, and ships from around the world converged in Vancouver to celebrate. There were at least 10 naval vessels of different types anchored in the harbour, including the USS Cape Cod, the USS Henry B. Wilson, the USS O’Callahan, the HMCS Gatineau, and the HMNZS Canterbury. It must have been quite a sight, with tenders ferrying sailors between their ships at anchor and the base.
Shortly after submitting their Dial-A-Sailor request, the sisters found themselves at the naval reserve on Deadman Island off Stanley Park, ready to meet their navy men. They were paired with two sailors off a Leander-class frigate from New Zealand. They remember Bruce being wiry and sociable, whereas Garth was stockier and quiet. Both turned out to be perfect gentlemen.
There was no shortage of things for the sisters and their sailors to do, from barbecues to beer gardens, musical performances, tennis, volleyball, softball tournaments, and watching the legendary and highly anticipated Nanaimo-to-Vancouver bathtub race. In the evening, the sky over English Bay was illuminated by fireworks.
The sisters were determined to give Bruce and Garth the full Vancouver experience. They took them to Grouse Mountain and Whytecliff Park, English Bay and Chinatown, Queen Elizabeth Park and Burnaby Mountain. They even brought them to their mother’s apartment for brunch.
McClarty—now a semi-retired walking guide in Vancouver—recalls the program initially being a tough sell. Nevertheless, Dial-A-Sailor became an integral part of Vancouver’s annual Sea Festival, and McClarty was pleasantly surprised by its success. “Eventually it took off, and it worked quite well,” he says, noting that two or three marriages came out of the program.
The matching program was not always smooth sailing though. At one point, the Westender’s phone number was incorrectly publicized on the radio. To their great surprise, a local family was inundated with calls from Vancouverites trying to match up with mariners. The error was quickly corrected, and it was back to business as usual.
An analog dating app for some, the program was not without controversy. In the summer of 1986, a journalist at the Vancouver Sun quoted a student who likened the program to an escort service. McClarty maintains it was all above board as visiting naval officers were required by their captains to be on their best behaviour while in port, with many sailors being paired with families. The program eventually fizzled out, as did the Sea Festival, which filed for bankruptcy in 2005.
Moneca and Maria confirm that nothing untoward went on. The apartment on Pendrell Street is still standing. Moneca, who lives in the Lower Mainland, frequently has dinner there with her sister. Watching the sun slowly set over English Bay through the living room window of the apartment, they reminisce. “We just really enjoyed their company. It was a fun thing to do,” Moneca adds.
In the weeks following their Dial-A-Sailor experience, the sisters received two beautiful handwritten letters from Bruce and Garth, one postmarked San Francisco, the other, Honolulu. The sailors thanked the two women for showing them so many places they would otherwise have missed. They skipped the local bars and instead saw some of the beautiful locales their host port had to offer. The letter from San Francisco was signed: “Take care my two dear Canadian ladies. Much love, your own private sailor, Garth.”
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