Launch of the future HMCS William Hall

The fourth of six new AOPVs to be built for the Royal Canadian Navy, the future HMCS William Hall, was launched by Irving Shipbuilding on Sunday. I caught her being towed back to the shipyard after launching. Halifax Shipping News has photos of the actual launch process.

Only a week before, the ship was still on land and looking like she wasn't going anywhere fast.

Two slightly modified additional ships (making a total of eight) will be built for the Canadian Coast Guard, once the ships for the Navy are complete.

My Absence for most of 2022...

This year has been rather busy, hectic, and stressful for me for a number of reasons, and as a result I have not posted anything to this blog since January (and I was rather sporadic even before that). I don't know that this blog is going to be that much more active in the coming months, but I thought I would share a few things that I have been doing this year.

Tug and pilot boat Masik Viking follows Margaret Brooke out of the port of Nuuk in Greenland.

First of all, I was fortunate in August to be able to accompany the future HMCS Margaret Brooke as embedded media into Canada's northern waters - first along the shore of Labrador to Iqaluit and then, after a quick diversion over to Nuuk in Greenland, up into Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait before I finally disembarked in Pond Inlet. 

View from Pond Inlet at the western end of Baffin Island.

This trip was to support an article for Warships IFR magazine, and it will appear spread over four issues of the magazine starting with the December issue - which was released in the UK on November 18th and normally appears in Canada after the middle of the following month. I have been self-embargoing most of my images of naval equipment and personnel from that trip to avoid scooping the magazine, but I have been sharing my landscape (and seascape) photography via my various social media accounts as well as the travel section of my Smugmug website.

Crew line the side of the newly commissioned HMCS Margaret Brooke during the commissioning ceremony.

Several weeks ago, I also got to attend the commissioning ceremony for HMCS Margaret Brooke and a day later visited the visiting USS Gerald R. Ford as well as the Danish frigate HDMS Peter Willemoes. Some of these events will also result in pieces in the December issue of Warships IFR, but I may share some of the images and observations on this blog once I finish with the magazine contributions.

A Seahawk helicopter on the flight deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford.

In any case, while occasionally feel guilty for neglecting my blog, I have been exceptionally busy and figure that I have an excuse. Hopefully the winter months will provide some time to rectify the situation.