CCGS Jean Goodwill tour

I had the opportunity for a quick tour of CCGS Jean Goodwill last week. This ship is the former Balder Viking, an icebreaking Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessel that was built for offshore oil and gas service in 2000 and taken up from trade by the Canadian Coast Guard in 2020. There is a Wikipedia page on her here.  

CCGS Jean Goodwill alongside at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO).

The ship is alongside at BIO for a maintenance period.

CCGS Jean Goodwill alongside at BIO.

The tour was necessarily brief, and started by heading up to the bridge.

The ship has stairs both inside and outside the superstructure.

The bridge itself is located at the top of the superstructure and wraps around with full 360 degrees of view. The primary helm station has two chairs and is on the forward starboard side, while there is a secondary helm station inside the port bridge wing.

Primary helm station on the starboard side. Personnel are provided with numerous screens to show input from the various sensors, navigation system, and ship's systems.

Primary helm station viewed from port.

Primary helm station.

Secondary helm station on the port side - possibly for redundancy, to provide a better view when approaching ships or structures on the port side, or both.

Secondary helm station on the port side. The primary helm station on the starboard side is visible in the background of this image.

Looking aft on the starboard side of the bridge over the chart table and towards two more workstations. 

Built as an AHTS for supporting the oil & gas industry with a large working deck and a Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) to maintaining station, there are two workstations at the aft end of the bridge - presumably for working with loading and offloading supplies (or handling anchors) from oil rigs (but I didn't have the chance to ask what the Coast Guard might use these for). 

Upon purchasing these ships, the CCG added an accommodation module to the back end of the bridge superstructure, the top of which can be seen above with the railing around it (and which obscures the view of the working deck). 

After the bridge, we got a quick look at the galley and cafeteria.

The galley is on the left (port side) and the cafeteria is on the right (starboard side) of this image.

Looking to port into the galley.

Looking to starboard into the cafeteria.

Next, the tour went down to the engineering spaces, starting with the Machinery Control Room (MCR).

The MCR is located immediately forward of the engine room, and itself faces forward.

Built as an oil & gas tug, but with icebreaking capability and a DPS, the ship has a suitable powerplant and engineering setup.

This schematic appears on the bridge at the primary helm station, and illustrates the layout of the engineering systems.

Propulsion is provided by two sets of diesels, two 8-cylinder engines (inboard, Main Engines 2 and 3) and two 6-cylinder engines (outboard, Main Engines 1 and 4). Each pair is mated to their own gearbox (port and starboard) and propeller shaft. There are Shaft Generators (shown as SG1 and SG2) on each shaft just aft of the gearboxes to generate electricity, along with two separate diesel generators at the forward end of the engine room (shown here as DG1 and DG2). Electricity is generated both for ship's power as well as to power the three thrusters - fixed bow (BOW) and stern (STERN) thrusters, plus a retractable azimuthing (AZI) bow thruster.

Port side diesel engines, Main Engine 4 (left) and Main Engine 3 (right). The port gearbox is out of sight to the left of the image, and exhaust trunking can be seen in the distance. 

Port diesel generator located just forward of the engine room. 

The starboard diesel generator was disassembled at the time of our tour, and the pistons were sitting on the deck.

The working deck looking forward.

Unfortunately our tour was over at this point, and I didn't capture the sunset at its most spectacular due to the smoke from wildfires out west.

To my untrained eye, the ship looked in pretty good condition for a 25-year-old tugboat taken up from trade. 

Thanks to the various crew members who facilitated our tour!

Flower-class Corvette chart house

As a child growing up in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, there were a number of similar garden sheds around the town - boxes with windows sitting in various backyards. I probably played in more than one of them over the years.

But these were no ordinary garden sheds - they used to be sea going structures. Not only that, but they used to be installed on the bridges of warships - well, corvettes anyway - small commercially -built ships based on whale catchers that were gerrymandered into submarine hunters and convoy escorts. 

Not a Tardis - this humble shed used to be a charthouse mounted on the bridge of a Flower-class corvette. This example has been restored and sits in front of the Queen's County Museum in Liverpool. 

The first batches of Flower-class corvettes came from the builder's yard with a short foc'st'le and a small chart house (also known as a compass shelter or "Asdic hut") on the open bridge platform above the wheelhouse. On the early RCN corvettes, this hut housed the ship's only compass - in contrast with the RN corvettes with their gyro compasses and multiple repeaters, it was a magnetic compass with no repeaters. Macpherson & Milner's "Corvettes of the Royal Canadian Navy 1939-1945" recounts that this made it impossible for the corvette's captain to direct a submarine battle from the open bridge while having direct sight on the ship's compass. Some ships had a monkey's island on top of the chart house, and judging from the many photos of early corvettes in the above mentioned book, the construction of the chart houses themselves might vary from ship to ship in terms of size and the number of windows.

The following photos show early Flower-class corvettes with their charthouses fitted - in fact, as these photos were copied from the memorial wall of the Royal Canadian Legion's White Ensign branch, I believe all of these ships were sunk with the charthouses still mounted.

HMCS WINDFLOWER - one of the original batch of Flower-class corvettes built for the Royal Navy in Canadian yards but taken up by the Royal Canadian Navy. The chart house is seen on top of the wheelhouse, and just behind the mast. Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Legion, White Ensign branch.

HMCS SPIKENARD in the original configuration, though with an early SW1C radar at the masthead. Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Legion, White Ensign branch.

HMCS WEYBURN. Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Legion, White Ensign branch.

HMCS LOUISBOURG. Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Legion, White Ensign branch.

The original batches of corvettes had a number of issues which were rectified in refits later in the war (assuming the ships survived that long), and later batches of corvettes were built from scratch with the modifications incorporated. These modifications included (but were not limited to) a longer foc'st'le (to improve seakeeping abilities among other reasons), moving the mainmast behind the bridge (to improve visibility from the bridge), and the removal of the charthouse - it was replaced with an open pilotage, as can be seen today onboard the only remaining Flower-class corvette, HMCS SACKVILLE.

Liverpool was home to Steel and Engine Products Limited - STENPRO for short (I've been corrected that it may have been called "Thompson Brothers" during the war). Later bought by Irving (and since shuttered and sold), this little ship repair yard (a short hop from the house in which I grew up) with its single marine railway, was active during the Second World War refitting corvettes - and not being ones to throw things away, the chart houses ended up in people's back yards, and some were still there 30-odd years later when I was growing up. 

I believe the small platform on the front of the chart house may have supported an RDF (Radio Direction Finder) antenna, although not all ships carried their RDF in this position. Many photos show it mounted more centrally on the roof of the chart house.

Along with the door on the aft end of the chart house is a small protrusion with a glass top - I believe this housed nautical charts so that they could be seen from outside without the chart getting wet in adverse weather conditions.

A view of the chart compartment from inside.

The museum was closed during my brief visit, so I don't know if it is known which corvette donated this particular charthouse - I wouldn't be surprised if that information has been lost to time. I'm just glad to see that at least one of these structures (along with some childhood memories) has been saved.

HMCS PRESERVER: Bridge and Ops Room Tour

As the largest ship (nominally) in commission with the RCN, it might not be a surprise that PRESERVER also has the largest bridge. Located at the top and forward end of the forward superstructure island, it spans the full 76 foot beam of the ship (if one includes the two bridge wings). 

Looking to port on the bridge of PRESERVER.

Perhaps due to its size, and because the AOR's don't have all the sensors and weapons found on the frigates and destroyers, PRESERVER's bridge is comparatively uncluttered. Up front are the chairs for the CO and XO, while immediately behind is the control console housing the steering and engine telegraph. I believe the XO's chair is shown here, on the starboard side.

This compass is located roughly on the ship's centreline.

The two grey boxes hanging on either side of the window above the compass indicate RPM (for the shaft I assume) and rudder position. 

Looking to port and slightly aft.

Looking to starboard. The grey console is (I think) the chart plotter, with the chart table to the right.

PRESERVER's Ops room is immediately aft of the bridge on the port side of the ship, and is home to various radar displays. For this reason, I suspect the grey box in the centre of the image above is the electronic chart plotter. Perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong. I believe the CO's chair is on the port side, shown in the photo above. Beyond the chart plotter is the helm station.

Helm station.

Helm station, with the engine telegraph to the right, and a SHINCOM panel (black with blue, orange, and white buttons) below.

Above the helm station are what I suspect are two gyro compass readouts. Somewhere in here will be the controls for the bow thruster, either to the right or left of the helm, but I am not sure which. 

I suspect this panel repeats some of the information from the MCR regarding engine and boiler operation, but annoyingly the image is too blurry to zoom in and read the details.

In addition to the bridge shown above, there is also an open bridge on the deck above. Although previous generations of warships could be expected to be operated from the open bridge (indeed, many WWII warships had ONLY an open bridge), PRESERVER normally only staffs the open bridge with lookouts during Replenishment At Sea (RAS) operations. However, basic information displays are available (I suspect rudder position and RPM to match the ones on the bridge below, and probably a patch into the ship's comms, but I didn't get a good shot) so presumably the ship could be commanded from this position if necessary, although I suspect that any event that takes out the main bridge would also take out the open bridge directly above.

Looking forward on the port side of the open bridge. The port "big-eye" can be seen in the image centre.

The open bridge is accessed via the ladder to the left, coming up from the port bridge wing. There is an identical ladder on the starboard side. The platform to the right of the photo most recently supported the Phalanx CIWS, however, this was removed several years ago to reduce maintenance costs and manning requirements on these ships. 

Looking to starboard. A compass, and what I suspect are rudder position and RPM displays, are on the centreline. The starboard "big-eye" can also be seen in the background, along with a few searchlights.

The photo above shows how exposed the open bridge on PRESERVER is, much more so than ships where the open bridge was intended to be regularly used at sea, and would not have been a pleasant place to be in any sort of weather. I seem to remember being told that it was typically used mainly when coming into port, but I may be wrong and lookouts may be kept above more than that. The open bridge is used during RAS operations, while lookouts would normally be posted to the port and starboard bridge wings.

Ops room looking forward and to starboard. The bridge is through the door to the left.

The ops room is situated immediately aft of the bridge, and is home to displays for the various radars on the ship. Presumably the two local control panels for the Phalanx CIWS would have been installed here as well, before they were removed. The three radar displays from centre to left of the image are, from left to right, for the SPS 502 air/surface search, the masthead F-band navigation radar, and the I-band navigation radar (mid-mast). There is a fourth display partially obscured to the right, which is presumably for the bridge-mounted Furuno navigation radar.

PROTECTEUR and PRESERVER were originally fitted with ASW sonar domes which could be raised or lowered, however, the sonars themselves are not fitted (and may never have been fitted). Presumably the displays for the sonars would have been installed here if the sonars themselves were ever fitted.

On the modern frigates, the Ops room is several decks below the bridge, whereas PRESERVER's bridge crew has easy access without resorting to ladders.

As always, comments and corrections are welcome.

HMCS IROQUOIS: Bridge Tour

If the bridge of a ship is considered its brain, then warships could be considered somewhat schizophrenic: IROQUOIS has both a bridge, from where the ship is directed during normal operations, and also an Ops room, from where the ship is fought and all the combat sensors and weapons are directed. In IROQUOIS, I didn't manage to photograph the latter compartment (though I did on TORONTO, to be featured in a future posting), but I did manage to tour the bridge.

Having never served in the Navy, my descriptions of the bridge will be somewhat limited. Any feedback I receive will be added in due course.

View from the bridge, overlooking the 76mm gun and foc'st'le.

The bridge is located high on the forward end of the main superstructure, and overlooks both the 76mm gun and the 29-cell Mk.41 vertical launch system on the foc'st'le (hidden behind the gun shield in the photo above). It provides good visibility looking forward, port and starboard, and limited visibility aft (blocked by the funnel and hangar). 

CO's chair looking to port.

The CO sits up front on the port side, with a SHINCOM (Ship Integrated Communications) panel to the CO's right. The flat panel TV in front of the CO's chair will have been a relatively recent addition. 

CO's chair looking port and aft.

Immediately behind the CO's chair is a communications station that accommodates three SHINCOM panels. 

Bridge communications station.

The three SHINCOM panels are located side-by-side running port to starboard, and appear to be operated by two personnel based on the number of chairs present. There is some sort of sonar control box mounted near the top left of the image - I am told this is for the underwater telephone for communicating with submerged submarines (presumably the AN/WQC-2 "Gertrude" or a more modern version).

Aft again from the communications station is a chair for a flag officer, on those occasions when one is embarked. 

Flag officer's chair looking forward and to starboard.

I'm not sure what allowances were present in the original IROQUOIS class configuration, but the final TRUMPed configuration is intended to accommodate a flag officer and task group command staff, and the bridge has a chair for the flag officer. The flag officer's chair received its own SHINCOM panel to the left of the chair. The bridge communications station can be seen to the left (forward of which is the CO's chair), and the helm station can be seen in the centre background of the image.

Bridge helm station looking to starboard.

Bridge helm station: helm is on the left, throttle station on the right.

I have covered the ship's helm and steering in a previous post, so I won't cover it in detail here. However, I will comment on the photo immediately above - in that previous post, I had indicated I didn't have a better photo of the helm and throttle stations, but then I found this photo, so I will have to update the previous post. The throttle station on the bridge is one of four in the ship, and provides direct throttle control for the two main and two cruise gas turbines in the engine room. The screen at this station will provide some of the machinery control system (MCS) readouts available in the MCR. 

Forward bridge, starboard side, looking to port.

On the starboard side of the bridge there is a radar display (not sure which radar it is associated with, though I assume the navigation sets), and above there is a status panel for a variety of things such as: man overboard, fire, gyros, and the variable depth sonar (VDS) which was removed from all ships of this class several years ago.

Raytheon radar display and SHINCOM panel (to the left).

Above is a close-up of the Raytheon radar display. I assume this is for one of the navigation radars, or perhaps can display output from more than one of the ship's radars. 

Looking to port from the starboard side.

Aft of the radar display is a chart table.

On the bridge centreline is a station for coordinating helicopter operations. 

Between the Raytheon radar display and the CO's chair is a station for coordinating helicopter launch and recovery operations. The dials at the top right indicate wind speed and direction, the box with the red display provides ship's speed, and the grey box in the middle between the windows has switches with labels such as "Launch", "Recover", "helo AIRBOURNE", and "helo ONBOARD". To the left of that is a smaller box for controlling the window wipers. I wonder if this was the original location of the helm and throttle stations before the TRUMP refit. 

AN/SPA-25F PP remote indicator (radar display).

Almost immediately aft of the helo operations station in the previous photo is this radar display. The AN/SPA-25F is a Range-Azimuth Indicator has a 10-inch screen "...designed for any standard Navy search radar system..." and can accept inputs from up to seven radar installations. To the left of the display unit is a selector switch for the LW-08 (long range air search), DA-08 (air/surface search), and Mk.127E (Sperry navigation set, of which there are two) radars. The glare shield on the display is optional, and may allow its use during night operations, or perhaps is required during the bright of day.

On the back bulkhead on the centreline is this desk. The SHINCOM panel is labelled "BOSNMATE". 

When they first arrived on the scene in the early 1970s, the bridge on the IROQUOIS class must have seemed like heaven compared to the bridges of the previous class of destroyers. Instead of a cramped bridge with only voice communication with the wheelhouse several decks below, and communication with the engine room via telegraph, these ships came on the scene with not only direct helm and throttle control, but also room for multiple radar displays and other items. While large well-equipped warship bridges are very common these days, this would have been fairly rare in the early 1970s, especially for the previous steam powered generation of destroyers in various navies. 

Looking forward and to starboard across the bridge.

Although the layout has changed, the large bridge and general concepts were also carried over to the HALIFAX class frigates 20 years later.