A last look at Iroquois

As it turned out Iroquois "sailed" at 1600hrs not 1700hrs, allowing for one last try at some photos. The sun was just setting behind cloudy skies with a very light snow shower, but the extra hour was a bit of a bonus. It also made it more convenient and safer for the pilots and tugs to work a cold ship in daylight.

Navy tug Glenevis peels away from the stern as Atlantic Spruce takes up the tow.

Despite reports of the deplorable condition of the ship, it still has fine bones.

Oceanex Sanderling holds off as it moves from Autoport to pier 42, leaving Iroquois lots of room.

The snow shower intensifies as the tow passes the Ives Knoll light and bell buoy for the last time.

 Last shot. 16:48:09 hrs

The APA pilot and an apprentice pilot disembarked at Ives Knoll, and boarded the tug for the trip out to the pilot station. A navy pilot was also assigned for unberthing and disembarked  on Glenevis. 
The APA pilot and the apprentice pilot were the last people aboard, as the overnight tow to Liverpool is "unmanned".

. 

.

Goodbye Iroquois

There will be many sad faces on the waterfront at 5 pm Thursday November 24 when the decommisioned HMCS Iroquois is towed away from HMC Dockyard to the scrappers in Liverpool.

The sun was setting in more ways than one in this Septmber 2011 photo.

It is unfortunate (and perhaps intentional) that the tow will take place in darkness, so photography will be difficult. I prefer to remember the ship in its better years, still with a pennant number.

In her pre-TRUMP days (not that Trump!) . The Tribal Update and Modernization Program converted the ships from ASW to AAW and in the process they also lost the twin canted stacks.

.

1973 time warp - Iroqouis, Athabaskan, Preserver - still with us.

Looking back through my records for December 1973, there are a lot of now dimly remembered or forgotten merchant ship names, none of which are still in service.

Such is not the case among naval vessels. Ships participating in Marcot, a three week naval exercise involving the RCN, RN and USN returned  to Halifax. HMCS Preserver, Annapolis (leader), Iroquios (leader) Assiniboine, Margaree, Nipigon, Qu'Appelle,  Okanagan, Onandaga, and Athabaskan arrived December 14, with Algonquin and Yukon to return December 17. HMS Ashanti did not come in to Halifax as far as I can tell. The USN participated with an Orion aircraft.
( I believe this was the first exercise for the new Tribals.)

I don't have photos from December 1973, but I have some that are relevant.

 1. July 1, 1980 saw Huron, Iroquois and Skeena dressed all over.

The Tribal class destroyers Iroquois and Athabaskan and the supply ship Preserver are still with us, and will be for some time to come as controversy still surrounds their replacements.

2. Protecteur and Preserver together at Imperial Oil while fueling in 1982.

Not surprisingly the Canadian Auditor General has now come out and stated that Canada will be paying a huge premium to build new supply ships in Canada. He faults the National Ship Replacement Strategy (NSPS) for the way it has picked two shipyards and other critics claim that Seaspan and Irving Shipbuilding have been given blank cheques to build ships without competitive pricing.

Our government knew that the political importance of building these ships in Canada would have a higher price tag. Not only that, they had to make up a huge deficit in Canadian shipbuilding capacity because previous governments failed to act on ship replacement, allowing the yards to die. Blaming the government for not knowing the size of that premium is a little self-serving in my opinion. Surely the AudG knows that there is no naval program anywhere in the world that is not plagued with overruns, delays and escalations. Name any country you like and naval shipbuilding is a controversial subject. The government needed to act, they chose a "no favouritism" method of selecting the builders and got the program moving, by first rebuilding the shipyards  The old method of calling for competitive pricing for a design package obviously did not work in the past -and would mean endless delays which would cost even more if allowed to continue.

The Auditor General would be well advised to comment and make recommendations on cost control measures to be put in place during the program, rather than carping about decisions that have already been made on a political basis. No sound business case could ever be made for building these ships in Canada - but the need to have a Canadian shipbuilding industry is a matter of sovereignty and patriotism. In an era of exporting technical and manufacturing jobs from Canada to the Third World, it makes political sense to create jobs in Canada. It also allows to keep a little corner on our needs without having to rely on other countries.

3. Pre-TRUMP Iroquois makes an early morning arrival in Halifax in 1980. The destroyers may be among the last ships to be replaced in the NSPS. They lost their distinctive canted funnels in that refit.

.