RCN Patrol Ships: HMCS Acadia, HMCS Cartier, HMCS Charny, HMCS Canada, HMCS Florence, HMCS Galiano, HMCS Grilse, HMCS Gulnare, HMCS Hochelaga, HMCS Lady Evelyn, HMCS Laurentian, HMCS Malaspina, HMCS Margaret, HMCS Newington, HMCS Restless, HMCS Stadacona

Patrol Ships, Armed Yachts, and Sloops, RCN 1910–1939

Dominion Government Hydrographic Survey ships converted to Patrol Boats

HMCS Acadia (converted from civilian use); HMCS Cartier/Charny (converted from civilian use)

HMCS Acadia

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Acadia, ca 1944.  She was a Dominion government hydrographic survey ship commissioned as a patrol vessel from 16 Jan 1917 to March 1919.  She carried out anti-submarine patrols in the Bay of Fundy as well as off the south shore of Nova Scotia and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  She then resumed survey duty until the outbreak of the Second World War when she was again commissioned on 2 Oct 1939, initially serving as a training ship for HMCS Stadacona, then later patrolling the Halifax approaches from May 1940 to March 1941.  She served as a training ship at Halifax for anti-aircraft gunners, and as a Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship (DEMS).  In June 1944 whe went to HMCS Cornwallis as a gunnery training ship.  She was paid off on 3 Nov 1945 and returned to the Dominion government.  She was retired from service on 28 Nov 1969 and today serves as a museum ship at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax harbour.

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Acadia, ca 1944.

(Author Photo)

HMCS Acadia preserved in Halifax.

HMCS Cartier

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3566768)

HMCS Cartier, 25 Oct 1940.  A Dominion government hydrographic survey ship, HMCS Cartier served as an armed patrol vessel on the east coast during the First World War.  She reverted back to government service between the wars, but was recommissioned as a training ship at Halifax on 18 Sep 1939.  She was renamed HMCS Charny on 9 Dec 1941.  She was paid off on 12 Dec 1945.

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Cartier.

Patrol boats

HMCS Canada (converted from civilian use); HMCS Florence (converted from civilian use); HMCS Galiano (converted from civilian use); HMCS Grilse (converted from civilian use); HMCS Gulnare (converted from civilian use); HMCS Hochelaga (converted from civilian use); HMCS Lady Evelyn (converted from civilian use); HMCS Laurentian (converted from civilian use); HMCS Malaspina (converted from civilian use); HMCS Margaret (converted from civilian use); HMCS Newington (converted from civilian use); HMCS Restless (converted from civilian use); HMCS Stadacona (converted from civilian use)

HMCS Canada.

(DND Photo)

HMCS Canada (converted from civilian use).

CGS Canada was a patrol vessel, sometimes referred to as a cruiser in the Fisheries Protection Service of Canada, an enforcement agency that was part of the Department of Marine and Fisheries.  Canada is considered to be the nucleus of the RCN for her role in training Canadian naval officers and asserting Canadian sovereignty.  Canada saw service in the First World War and was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS Canada in 1915.  She underwent a refit to become a naval patrol ship which saw her forecastle raised and the Maxim guns for fisheries patrol use were replaced with two 12-pounder and two 3-pounder naval guns.  She served on the Atlantic coast.  HMCS Canada was decommissioned from the RCN in Nov 1919 and she resumed her former civilian fisheries patrol duties as CGS Canada before being retired from government service in 1920.  She was sold for commercial use and renamed MV Queen of Nassau.  On the verge of being sold again, the ship sank in the Straits of Florida on 2 July 1926.

(Bud (Donald) Rose Photo)

HMCS Canada, St. Johns, Newfoundland, ca 1918.

HMCS Florence

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Florence.  Built by Crescent Shipyard, she was originally named Czarina, then later Emeline.  In 1910, she was bought by John Eaton, who brought her to Toronto.  He presented Florence to the RCN, which commissioned her on 19 Jul 1915, and for most of the ensuring year she served as guard ship at Saint John, NB, and patrol vessel in the Bay of Fundy.  However, she proved to be unsuitable and was paid off in Aug 1916.  Later that year Florence was sold to buyers in Martinique and is said to have been lost in the Caribbean in Jan 1917.  Her specifications on commissioning were: Displacement: 257 tons: Length: 144 feet, Beam: 22.5 feet; Draught: 7.5 feet; Speed: 12 knots; Armament: One 3-pounder.

HMCS Galiano

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Galiano.  Canadian fisheries patrol vessel CGS Galiano.  Converted from civilian use, she served during the First World War as HMCS Galiano and was lost in October 1918.

HMCS Grilse

(DND Photo)

HMCS Grilse (converted from civilian use), commissioned patrol boat of the Royal Canadian Navy during the First World War, shown here in 1916.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3205335)

HMCS Grilse, 1916.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3723994)

HMCS Grilse, 1915.

HMCS Gulnare

(RCN Photo, B-011786)

HMCS Gulnare (converted from civilian use), alongside HMCS Loos, 20 Sep 1937.  Gulnare was purchased by the Canadian government in 1902 for fishery protection work.  From 1918 to 1919 she served as a contraband control vessel on the east coast, returning after the war to government duties which included hydrographic survey.  She was sold to Marine Industries Ltd. about 1938, and broken up about 10 years later.

HMCS Hochelaga

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Hochelaga (converted from civilian use).  Originally an armed yacht formerly named Waturus, HMCS Hochelaga was purchased in the US in 1914.  She served as a patrol vessel from 13 Aug 1915 to 1920, and from then until 1923 took up coastguard duties.  On 25 Aug 1918, HMCS Hochelaga sighted U-156 on the surface off Halifax, but instead of attacking, in accordance with standing orders, retired towards the rest of her patrol group for 'support'.  The submarine submerged and was not re-located.  HMCS Hochelaga's Commanding Officer was later court-martialled and dismissed from service.  This was the only occasion during the First World War that the RCN encountered a German U-boat.  After the war, she spent many years as a Pictou-Charlottetown ferry and was sold in 1942, to reappear briefly four years later when she was seized by the RN as an illegal Israeli immigrant ship.

(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3723998)

HMCS Hochelaga.

HMCS Lady Evelyn

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Lady Evelyn (converted from civilian use).  Built by Tranmere, UK for a Blackpool firm and originally named Deerhound, she was acquired and renamed by the Postmaster-General's department in 1907.  Lady Evelyn's new function was to meet transatlantic mail steamers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and take off the mail for transfer to trains.  She was commissioned HMCS Lady Evelyn in the RCN as a patrol vessel from Jun 1917 to 1919, and survived in commercial service on the west coast until shortly before the Second World War.  Her armament was one 12-pounder gun.  The Howe Sound Navigation Co. brought the screw steamer Lady Evelyn a former Canadian mail packet on the St. Lawrence, to Vancouver in 1921 for operation with Brittania.  In 1923 she was bought by the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia and remained with them until 1936, when she was scrapped.

HMCS Laurentian

(RCN Photo)

HMCS Laurentian (converted from civilian use).  Built by Cook, Welton and Gemmell, Beverley, UK, initially named King Edward, she was acquired in 1911 by Canada Steamship Lines and renamed Laurentian.  She was sold to the RCN six years later and served as a patrol vessel from May 1917 to Jan 1919.  She was later transferred to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, serving as a lighthouse supply ship and buoy tender until sold for scrap in 1947.

HMCS Malaspina

(DND Photo)

HMCS Malaspina (converted from civilian use).  The Canadian government ship GCS Malaspina served with the Royal Canadian Navy during the First and Second World Wars as HMCS Malaspina.  During the Second World War she served as an examination vessel and training vessel.  HMCS Malaspina was serving as a tender to HMCS Royal Roads when she was paid off in 1946.

(Vancouver City Archives Photo)

HMCS Malaspina (converted from civilian use).

(Vancouver City Archives Photo)

HMCS Malaspina (converted from civilian use).

HMCS Margaret

(DND Photo)

HMCS Margaret (converted from civilian use).  CGS Margaret was a Canadian Government Ship, and was the first vessel to be built specifically for the Customs Preventive Service.  Delivered in 1914, she was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and served as HMCS Margaret during the First World War.  Following the war, Margaret was returned to the Customs Preventive Service, and was transferred to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1932.  Sold shortly thereafter, she was subsequently acquired by the Brazilian Navy and renamed Rio Branco.

HMCS Newington

(CGS Photo)

HMCS Newington, shown as CGS Newington, before being converted from civilian use for service with the RCN during the First World War.  Prior to the war, the ship served as a fishing trawler and lighthouse tender for the Canadian government.  Following the war the vessel was returned to government service.  CGS Newington was converted to a tugboat in 1920.  Sold to private interests in 1920 the ship sank on 26 August 1959 while laid up in Burrard Inlet, British Columbia.

HMCS Restless

(DND Photo)

HMCS Restless (converted from civilian use)., this ship served throughout the First World War as an examination vessel on the west coast.  Built in 1906, she was purchased for fishery patrol two years later. She served as a training ship at the Royal Naval College of Canada, Esquimalt, from 1918 to 1920, when she was donated to the Navy League of Canada for sea cadet training. She was sold in 1927, but remained in commercial service until about 1950, when she was destroyed by fire in Saanichton Bay, BC.

HMCS Stadacona

(IWM Photo, CN-3275)

HMCS Stadacona (converted from civilian use), became a commissioned patrol boat of the RCN, serving in the First World War and postwar until 1920.  Originally named Columbia, this large yacht was purchased from her New York owner and commissioned on 13 Aug 1915, for patrol duty out of Halifax.  She was also for a time the flagship at Halifax of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill.  Early in 1919, HMCS Stadacona was sent around to the west coast and, after briefly serving as a dispatch vessel, she paid off 31 Mar 1920.  After a few years' employment as a fisheries patrol and hydrographic survey vessel, she was sold in 1924 to Central American Shipping of Vancouver and later sold to Ocean Salvage Co., owner Joseph W. Hobbs.  She then achieved a degree of notoriety as a rumrunner's ship under the name Kuyakuzmt.  In 1929 she was rebuilt at Vancouver and once again became a yacht, successively named Lady Stimson and Moonlight Maid.  In 1941 she became a towboat, and served the US government as such for a time in 1942.  She was burned for salvage at Seattle in Jan 1948.