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Sail Training Ship HMCS Oriole on the Ways
Our Victoria Waterfront Correspondent, Murray Polson, caught HMCS Oriole on the ways for maintenance in Victoria BC.
HMCS Oriole Awaiting Installation of Her Second Mast(Murray Polson photo)
HMCS Oriole (KC–480) is the sail training vessel of the Royal Canadian Navy based at CFB Esquimalt in Victoria, British Columbia. She was originally rigged as a schooner but her sail area was reduced to make her easier to handle for sail training and now she is a 31-metre sailing ketch. She is currently the oldest commissioned vessel in the Royal Canadian Navy, and also the longest serving commissioned ship in the RCN. Launched in 1921 she started life as the personal yacht of George H. Gooderham (an Ontario manufacturer and political figure), then Commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto.
She is ketch-rigged, 102' x 18.5' x 9.5'. She displaces approximately 100 tons and carries a sail area of 14,447 square feet of sail. Her mainmast is 87' and her mizzen 55' (above deck). A Cummins 165bhp diesel engine powers her when the wind isn't strong enough to propel her. She has sleeping accomodation for 21.
During the Second World War, she was chartered by the Royal Canadian Navy as a training vessel. She was used to train sea cadets on the Great Lakes until 1949 when she was moved to the Maritimes for sail training for new entry seamen. She was commissioned as HMCS Oriole in 1952, and in 1954 she was moved to Esquimalt.
HMCS Oriole (Murray Polson photo)
She is the longest serving ship in the Canadian Navy. The Oriole provides sail training to junior officers and non–commissioned officers. She participates in many events, races and public relation day sails. HMCS Oriole has frequently acted as the Salute Vessel for the Victoria Classic Boat Festival.
Site News: December 21, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.