MV Asterix and (the future) HMCS HARRY DEWOLF

Pre-commissioning trials continued this past week for the future HMCS HARRY DEWOLF, the first of the new Arctic/Offshore Patrol Vessels to enter RCN service, with the ship undertaking her first Replenishment-at-Sea (RAS) from the leased supply vessel MV Asterix. The trials began with the two ships sitting across from each other at Jetty NB, where I believe the hoses were first run across between the ships under controlled conditions. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a photos of the hoses actually run across, and didn't see it myself (so I'm guessing), but I believe this was also done with a frigate in the past when Asterix first arrived in Halifax.

Asterix headed out on Tuesday afternoon, with HARRY DEWOLF heading out later in the evening (I caught the former, but missed the latter).

HARRY DEWOLF returned to port briefly on Wednesday, before heading out again. I was able to catch her arrival from the ferry on my way home from work.

Whereas the frigates have permanently mounted kingposts to allow at-sea refueling operations, the AOPVs are not expected to undertake RAS operations on a regular basis, and they require a temporary kingpost to be set up on the flight deck to accept the cables that support the refueling lines from the tanker. The refueling connection point itself is located at the forward end of the flight deck just behind the orange lifeboat. Regardless, it is a useful capability for these ships to have.

HMCS SACKVILLE refit approaching an end

The last Flower-class corvette, HMCS SACKVILLE, has been in refit since autumn 2020 in the Navy's submarine maintenance facility at Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Scott (FMFCS) within the Halifax Dockyard. This refit has seen the ship's entire hull below the waterline (plus selected areas above the waterline) clad in new 1/2" welded steel plate over top of her existing rivetted steel plate. The refit is approaching its conclusion, with only minor work remaining.

The hull has been completely repainted both above and below the waterline, with minor exceptions that I will describe in a moment. The deck was also being repainted when I visited on Thursday (April 1), and the painters were literally "painting themselves off the ship", so I was unable to board or go below - I would have left a trail of footprints in the paint that would have made me extremely unpopular. Also, walking the plank when the ship is high and dry is simply not survivable.

In the photo above, you will note that the ship's load lines at her stem have not been repainted - I'm told that the shipwrights of FMFCS must determine where these are to be placed after all the new steel has been added to the ship, and this isn't something that is simply repainted to replicate the old markings. 

The ship sits on a cradle of wood blocking that is laid out by those same shipwrights to ensure the ship is properly supported when she is out of the water, and at these locations the old rivetted steel plate is still visible. The ship will be undocked in mid-April, at which time the blocking will be reconfigured to support the ships in plated locations so that these remaining areas can be clad with new plate and painted. The ship will be redocked, and plating completed, and the ship is hoped to return to the waterfront before summer. You can also see the welds at the joints between the new plates in the above photo.

The ship's bottom may never look this good again - this view shows the rudder, propeller shaft, and bilge keels from aft. The bilge keels have been plated over in new plate, while the rudder will likely be the only portion below the ship's waterline still showing off the original rivets.

I'm told that the pitted piece of steel shown here where the propeller shaft (which itself is capped) exits the hull is a 30-ton component, and I wonder if this was part of the "thrust block" that transmitted the propeller's thrust to the ship. It is presumably original, and has not been clad in new steel.

The bolt shafts that will accept the ship's new sacrificial anodes are fitted, and await the installation of the anodes. The anodes were in very good shape when the ship was hauled out in September 2020, though they had only been in place since the end of the 2018 refit.

A full gallery of photos appears on my Smugmug website, including both refits during the period of 2018-2021. At the request of ship modelers on the ship's Facebook page, we have also taken advantage of the upper catwalk in the submarine shed to capture a number of detail photos from above.

Upcoming - Harry Dewolf Tour

Back in January I received a tour of the Royal Canadian Navy's future HMCS HARRY DEWOLF and had the opportunity to interview her Commanding Officer, Cdr Corey Gleason. I've been sitting on the photos for a while to avoid scooping my article appearing across two issues of Warships IFR magazine - Part 1 in the April edition, and Part 2 appearing in May. The April edition is already out in the UK, and will likely appear on shelves in Canada in the 3rd or 4th week of April, with the May edition following in late May. I typically pick up a copy at Atlantic News, but I believe Chapters also carries the magazine. The cover of the April issue looks like this:

Part 1 of the article uses three pages to discuss the Arctic/Offshore Patrol Vessel's (AOPV) capabilities and position within the RCN fleet, while Part 2 sprawls across four pages and describes the process by which a new ship (and indeed, a new class of ship) is brought into service. While I plan to show more of the photos here once the May edition is on shelves, I won't go into as much detail describing the ship as I have done in the magazine.

Future HMCS MAX BERNAYS

(Note: A previous version of this blog post incorrectly indicated that the WILLIAM HALL was rolled out, however, it is actually the MAX BERNAYS. The keel for the WILLIAM HALL was laid recently, hence my confusion on the subject. The quickest way to find the answer to something is to post the incorrect answer on the internet.)

The future HMCS WILLIAM HALL MAX BERNAYS is taking shape at the Halifax Shipyard, with the stern and midships sections having rolled out of the building hall within the last few months, and having recently been joined together. MAX BERNAYS will be the third Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV) to enter service in the Royal Canadian Navy. The first, HARRY DEWOLF, is currently undergoing sea trials and has recently operated in ice off Baffin Island. She will commission into the RCN later this year.

The arrangement of the building yard, storage for snow, ship's cradles, and high fencing does not make for easy photography, but one manages.

The opening for the port stabilizer can be seen just to the right of the yellow debris chute - it is retracted into the hull, as it would be when the ship is operating in ice or coming alongside. Icebreaking hulls are not known for great handling in rough sea conditions, and these stabilizers will help to make the ships a little more comfortable and prevent excessive rolling.

Photography from the ferry at dusk is similarly not easy, as it is taken from a distance at high ISO levels, but it can certainly be pretty. I need to find a better vantage point for this sort of night time image.

For those interested, I have a two-part article on these ships coming out in the April and May editions of Warships International Fleet Review magazine, and these articles greatly benefitted from an interview with the commander of HMCS HARRY DEWOLF.

Old photos of St. John's and Harbour

 In scanning my grandfather's old slides, I came across some interesting images showing the harbour at St. John's, NL, between 1947 and the early 1970s. He seems to have travelled there several times over the years, with several trips to Newfoundland during the early 1970s. I'm assuming most or all of the images were taken by my grandfather, but it is possible some were purchased in a store at some point.

My grandfather would have arrived in St. John's by sea in both 1947 or so as well as in 1954 - the former while following his family who were travelling in the RMS Aquitania (only he stopped in St. John's, not the rest of the family) and the second crossing on the RM Ships Newfoundland and Nova Scotia with his family.

The first few images were taken from around Cabot Tower looking back up the harbour, and the first two were taken as early as 1947. The first two were processed by the Munshaw company, in contrast with all the rest of the slides, so I think the 1947 date is correct. Later slides from the 1950s appear to be Kodak, but using a different backing than the 1970s Kodak slides.

The quality of the older slides isn't the greatest. Compare the image above to the next image taken in the early 1970s.

The different lighting hides some of the contrasts between the two images, but the buildings along the waterfront certainly seem to have sprung up in the intervening years. I would love to know the name of what appears to be a tied up cruise ship.

A still later image than the preceding ones, though regrettably not taken from quite the same vantage point:

The following images appear to have been taken from a ship entering the harbour, but I'm not positive which ship nor which trip they were taken on. I'm assuming from the fact that these slides have Kodak backing, rather than Munshaw, that they are from the 1954 trip.

Taken from shore again, the next image shows al the fishing shacks and boats that used to line the harbour mouth.

The next two images presumably date from 1947 or so, and seem to show the same ship alongside. I can't make out a name.

The rest of the images are from the early 1970s. I believe this next image is of one of the French Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy Company's ships, Ampere.

The next two images from 1970 show a Portuguese fishing vessel, the Celeste Maria. Although the ship lasted 18 years under this name, which Nova Scotia's probably view as somewhat unlucky, she was lost to a fire at sea in 1972.

Look at the stacked dories!

The next cable ship, Northern, belonged to the Great Northern Telegraph Company. This photo was taken in 1972.

This final image is probably from 1954, and appears to show a back alley.

ASDIC in HMCS SACKVILLE

Once of the benefits of having HMCS SACKVILLE in for refit is that we are able to access compartments that would normally be inaccessible. Two of those spaces are associated with the ship's original underwater sensor suite (originally knows as ASDIC, now better known as SONAR) as well as the former chain (or cable) locker, which I believe was retrofitted at some point to accommodate an underwater sensor of its own.

It should be noted that while much of the following has been contributed by others, more knowledgeable than I on ASDIC/SONAR, we are hoping to find someone who may have been familiar with the installations within SACKVILLE (or corvettes in general) either during the war or after during SACKVILLE's days as a loop layer and research vessel. In particular, my thanks to (in no particular order) Jerry Proc, Clive Kidd, Koji Kamori, and Norrie Millen for their observations and help in interpreting the fittings that remain in SACKVILLE.

In the section below, the ASDIC compartment is labelled as "NO. 1 STORE ROOM" just aft of the cable locker.

Viewed from the exterior of the hull, you can just see the through-hull penetrations from the ASDIC compartment on the left of the following image, with another through-hull penetration from the cable locker on the right.

All of these openings have been plated over to prevent leakage. Viewed from underneath, the ASDIC compartment penetrations can be seen clearly (aft is to the left, the bow is towards the right of this image):

And the opening from the cable locker:

ASDIC was originally developed during the First World War, but was still fairly primitive at the start of the Second World War. SACKVILLE was originally fitted with a Type 123 ASDIC, which was developed in the 1930s. From my writeup on the Haze Gray and Underway website:

"Due to the primitive electrical systems on the early corvettes, these ships had to rely on magnetic compasses, rather than more advanced and reliable gyro compasses. The reliance on magnetic compasses limited these ships to the older Type 123A sonar, as newer sonars required gyro compasses. The use of magnetic compasses alone was a limiting factor, as they were sensitive to the steel construction of the ships on which they were mounted, and tended to bounce around in heavy seas and when the corvettes were thrown about after dropping depth charges, which made it difficult to plot an accurate course.

These "primitive but reliable" sonar sets used an oscillator located under the hull which could be rotated through 360 degrees (by hand!), but was fixed at about 6 degrees below the horizontal. As a result, conditions under which a submarine could be located, and contact maintained, were limited. As the oscillator was fixed in elevation, a corvette was forced to lose contact with a targeted U-boat during the actual attack phase where the corvette passed over the U-boat to drop depth charges, and one tactic early in the war was for one corvette to stand off and hold the contact while another corvette went in for the attack. The development of the Hedgehog, and other "stand-off" weapons later in the war, also helped to overcome this shortcoming.

The improved 123D set came about merely by adding a second magnetic compass and bearing indicator on the bridge, and a loudspeaker system for the sonar operator to communicate directly with bridge personnel. The upgrade appears to have occurred sometime between 1942 and 1943 for some ships, but was never fully carried out in favour of other more improved sonar sets."

The underwater portion, or "hull outfit", of the Type 123 ASDIC unit looked very similar to the following diagram, which I have borrowed from Jerry Proc's excellent website, which he in turn borrowed from another website, and which probably originates from a book of some sort:

On the inside of the ship, only the top protrusion would be visible. The following photo is reproduced from page 102 of Thomas Lynch's book "Canada's Flowers", and shows the ASDIC compartment of HMCS ALBERNI in 1941. The photo is looking to forward and to port, with the forward bulkhead (common with the chain locker) to the right and the interior of the ship's hull in the background. The winch to the left was for raising and lowering the oscillator (transducer) unit. 

The shelf in the corner (middle of the photo, with the boxes on it) appears at the bottom of the ladder in this photo taken this past week inside of SACKVILLE's ASDIC compartment (this photo looks in the opposite direction, to aft and to starboard):

Just to the left of the orange ventilation hose are the two openings (one with a gate valve installed on it, the other with a blind flange installed). In addition, aft of the ASDIC openings, there are two cylinders (with covers) on either side of the ship's keel which we have not yet identified. One suggestion (probably the most likely) is that they were transducer pockets for an echo sounder. (Note: This suggestion has been confirmed by several people - the pots would have been filled with an oil to keep air out of the cylinders.) 

Generally, the Flower-class corvettes were later upgraded with the Type 127 ASDIC as a stepping stone to the later, more advanced, Type 144. Again, stolen from my writeup on the Hazegray site:

"Macpherson and Milner indicated that the Type 127D was an interim upgrade to early Flower class corvettes between the fitting of Type 123 and the later, much improved, Type 144 set. The Type 127D introduced motorized rotation of the oscillator, and the oscillator was stabilized to maintain a constant attitude regardless of the movement of the ship. The Type 127D also required a gyro compass, and required that the ships be rewired with a low power system. In addition, the Type 127D could be used in conjunction with the new Hedgehog ASW mortar, although without complete integration between the two."

Some corvettes would also have received the Type 144 ASDIC, which would have looked similar to the following diagram (borrowed from the Weapons and Warfare website).

A labelled version follows:

The interior of the Type 144 appeared as follows (courtesy of the Australian War Memorial website):

From my writeup on the Hazegray site: 

"An improved sonar set with a fixed gyro-stabilized oscillator that used a gyro compass for bearing indication. The Type 144 was fully integrated with the Hedgehog or Squid ASW mortars. The Type 144Q was a Type 144 sonar with a "Q" attachment, which was a second oscillator that trained with the main oscillator, but was elevated down further for maintaining contact with the target at close range (possibly around 400 yards).

See Jerry Proc's website (link below) for an excellent description of these sonars, as well as a diagram showing how the Type 144, 144Q, and 147F worked together.

According to Norrie Millen (retired Royal Navy):

"I think under ideal conditions a range of 2800 – 3000 yards was possible, all depending on sea state, temperature of water etc. Q and Q2 [attachments] were used for close range and the switch was made just before instant echoes [were] reached to ensure target was not lost. I do not remember switching to Q at 1200 yards. I had 144 on my 3rd ship (1961-63)."

SACKVILLE's forward boiler was damaged during the war, and not repaired. Because of this, SACKVILE was retasked as a training vessel, and then a loop layer. After the war, she was modified to become a research vessel. Because of this, it isn't immediately clear whether she received the Type 144 set. To complicate matters further, we don't know what sensors she received during her time as a research vessel, and how the original fittings were modified to accommodate those sensors. Presumably as part of her research work, her cable locker was also fitted to accommodate some sort of sensor - the following photo shows two (open-topped) cylinders (or pots) on either side of the keel that look similar to the covered cylinders in the ASDIC compartment, in addition to the gate valve fitted to the through-hull penetration (on the centreline running between the two pots, and towards the top left of the image).

This image only shows one of the two pots, but shows the gate valve on the through-hull penetration a bit better. 

In addition, the cable locker was fitted with a voice pipe, for purposes unknown. Another view of the cable locker, looking forward:

One of the two pad eyes still has the remains of a shackle attached to it - I'm guessing that the ends of the ship's two anchor chains might originally have been shackled to the pad eyes to prevent them from going overboard when dropping the anchor.

And if you're wondering - yes, that is the interior of the ship's hull plating on either side of the photo. When the ship is afloat, there is water on the other side of that steel plate. As a museum ship, SACKVILLE is ballasted down to compensate for a lack of fuel and ammunition, and all sorts of other kit that has been removed over the years. If you look closely on both the left and right of the photo, you can see the scum line left by ballast water, as this compartment would normally be full of water when she is afloat.

If anyone has comments or information that might be useful to add to this post, please leave it in a comment, and I will see what I can do to incorporate it.