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CCGS Labrador

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CCGS Labrador
CCGS Labrador
History
Canadian Navy Jack
NamesakeLabrador
CommissionedJuly 8 1954
FateSold for scrap in 1987
General characteristics
Displacementapprox. 6,490 tons full load
Length82 m
Beam19.2 m
Draught9 m
Propulsion6 x 2000 bhp 10-cylinder diesel engines powering 2 x 5000 shp electric propulsion motors
Speed16 knots (30 km/h) maximum, 12 knots (22 km/h) cruising
Complement224
Armamentnone fitted
Aircraft carried1 x Piasecki HUP Retriever twin-rotor helicopter and 2 x Bell HTL-4 single-rotor helicopters

CCGS Labrador was a Wind-class icebreaker. First commissioned on July 8 1954 as HMCS Labrador (pennant number AW 50) under the auspices of the Royal Canadian Navy, she was transferred to the Department of Transport on November 22 1957. She was among the DOT fleet assigned to the nascent Canadian Coast Guard when that organization was formed in 1962 and Labrador's illustrious career marked the beginning of the CCG's icebreaker operations which continue to this day. She extensively charted and documented the then-poorly-known Canadian Arctic, and was the first ship to circumnavigate North America in a single voyage.

Early history

File:Hmcs-labrador-badge.jpg
Ship's badge of the then-HMCS Labrador

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the Canadian government had made limited contact with the vast Arctic coast it laid claim to, largely because it lacked the capacity to make forays into much of this remote terrain. Labrador was conceived as Canada's first modern, powerful icebreaking vessel, which could help meet national defence needs in the high Arctic but also explore the vast area and its rich resources.

Labrador was built in the Marine Industries yards in Sorel, Quebec between 1949 and 1954, using modified plans from the just-completed Wind-class Arctic patrol ships of the United States Coast Guard. She was modified to include then state-of-the-art scientific equipment changing her from a purely military patrol vessel to a self-sufficient explorer—an elaborately equipped floating laboratory, hospital, transport, rescue ship and school. At the time of her commissioning, she was the RCN's first fully diesel-electric vessel.

Northwest Passage voyage

Labrador set sail on her maiden voyage on July 23 1954 from Halifax, Nova Scotia, bound for the Labrador Sea. Over the next summer she worked her way through Canada's Arctic archipelago from east to west, conducting hydrographic soundings, resupplying RCMP outposts and deploying assorted scientific and geological teams. Her rendezvous with her American sister-ships Northwind and Burton Island off the coast of Melville Island on August 25 1954 marked the first time naval vessels had met in the Arctic from the east and west. The three ships surveyed the Beaufort Sea together until the end of September, at which point Labrador headed for the base of Canada's Pacific fleet at Esquimalt, British Columbia. Upon sailing down the west coast of the United States, through the Panama Canal and back to Halifax, Labrador also became the first ship to circumnavigate North America in a single voyage.

Career

The remainder of Labrador's early career involved considerable work on the Distant Early Warning Line project. From June to September 1955, she led a task group of 14 Canadian and American ships delivering thousands of tons of supplies for DEW Line sites under construction in the Foxe Basin area of the eastern Arctic, and in following years continued to provide icebreaking and operational support.

Labrador was transferred to civilian control in 1957, and operated under the auspices of the Department of Transport during the four years before the Canadian Coast Guard was formally established. She continued to serve the CCG for 29 years, before being sold for scrap in 1987.

Ship's History

  • 1951 - Laid down
  • 1952 -
  • 1953 -
  • 1954 - Completed and Commissioned to RCN and based at Halifax.
  • 1955 -
  • 1956 -
  • 1957 -
  • 1958 - Paid off for refit, but transferred to DOT. Commissioned as CGS Labrador, based in Dartmouth, NS.
  • 1959 -
  • 1960 -
  • 1961 -
  • 1962 - Renamed CCGS Labrador in the Canadian Coast Guard
  • 1963 -
  • 1964 - Captain N.V. Clarke took the Labrador up Kennedy Channel, between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, to reach the most northerly position ever attained by any Canadian ship at the time. This position, in 81 deg. 45 min. North latitude, is only 60 nautical miles (111 km) from Alert.
  • 1965 -
  • 1966 -
  • 1967 -
  • 1968 -
  • 1969 -
  • 1970 -
  • 1971 -
  • 1972 -
  • 1973 -
  • 1974 -
  • 1975 -
  • 1976 -
  • 1977 -
  • 1978 -
  • 1979 -
  • 1980 -
  • 1981 -
  • 1982 -
  • 1983 -
  • 1984 -
  • 1985 -
  • 1986 -
  • 1987 - Decommissioned from service and scrapped. Replaced by CCGS Henry Larsen. The Larsen was later transferred to Newfoundland.

References

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