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HMCS Victoria (SSK–876)
HMCS Victoria June 2013 (Photo from the Salmon collection.)
An uncommon sight on Canada’s west coast is a submarine on the surface. Dan and Lynn Salmon photographed HMCS Victoria on the surface transiting south of Nanaimo BC on June 16th, 2013. Nearby is the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges which operates a torpedo testing range, so it is presumed that she may have been test firing her Mark 48 torpedoes.
HMCS Victoria is a long–range hunter–killer submarine of the Royal Canadian Navy. She is named after the City of Victoria, British Columbia. She was purchased from the Royal Navy, and is the former HMS Unseen (S41). She is covered in anechoic tiles to reduce her detection by active sonar.
The purchase of four vessels in her class has been controversial and all four have been plagued with technical problems. HMCS Victoria suffered damage in 2006 and was dry–docked for extensive and lengthy repairs. On July 17, 2012, she successfully fired a Mark 48 torpedo, striking and sinking the USNS Concord (a de–commisioned surplus US Navy vessel) as part of the RIMPAC 2012 exercises. HMCS Victoria was declared fully operational in 2012, and as might be expected from the ‘Silent Service’ there has been very little reporting of her movements.
Site News: April 19, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.