Kopit Hopson 1752 - more trials

 The CCGS Kopit Hopson 1752 put out to sea today for trials, and returned to its base at the Bedford Institute in mid-afternoon.

The ship is coming off a multi-year Vessel Life Extension (VLE) project, and is presumably soon to return to service. I have covered the ship numerous times with posts about its refit, its new crane (replacing its original derrick) and its renaming. The ship was built in 1986 by Marine Industries Ltd in Sorel-Tracy, QC. It is a Type 1100 light icebreaker and navaids vessel. (Some refer to ships of this class as Martha L. Black class, but that is an informal designation, and not one that is used  by the CCG.)

The VLE refit was awarded to IrvingShipbuilding Inc (ISI) in March 2020 and most of the work was conducted at the Shelburne Shipyard. When ISI sold the yard in 2022, the ship was towed to Halifax for completion. After trials in December 2022 the ship was handed over to the Coast Guard. It has since been docked at the Bedford Institute allowing for commissioning and CCG's own work, crew familiarization, etc.,

From this point forward I hope to mention the ship in this blog without having to recount its history and the reasons for its change of name. I had been promoting that change since 2011, and received lots of flack as a result. Nor did I receive a response, or even an acknowledgement, from the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to my open letter of January 2018 (copied to my MP). I take no credit for the fact that they did change the name eventually. Since this blog is a personal online journal, and not a discussion forum (we have Facebook for that) I feel no obligation to publish those negative comments nor to embrass the authors in case they have changed their minds.

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