Built as the mission boat ‘Ave Maria’ at Meares Island in Clayoquot Sound in 1957. The last of four boats built for the mission school by the eye and hand of Barney Williams, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) fisherman and shipwright of the Tula-o-qui-aht First Nation with students from the residential school. With the closing of the school in 1983 the boat was found derelict at Tofino, rescued and rebuilt into this classic Pacific Northwest cruiser. Barney Williams was a Chief of the Sea Otter Clan, and had visited the boat during her rebuild. Much later, when aboard, he presented a carved plaque of the sea otter, carved by his son of yellow cedar - now mounted in NOOTKA’s pilot house.