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The fleet ships out!

Spencer100

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This must have been great to see. That is a good percentage of the fleet.  Good Luck

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/978412.html

Shipping out — times eight
Biggest military flotilla since 2002 sails off to training exercises
By DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporter
Wed. Nov 14 - 5:34 AM



Led by the destroyer HMCS Iroquois, left, eight Canadian navy ships round George’s Island on their sailpast in Halifax Harbour onTuesday. (TIM KROCHAK / Staff)





Eight navy ships, including a destroyer, pulled out of Halifax in style Tuesday morning.

The largest military flotilla to leave Halifax Harbour since 2002 performed a sailpast, with Rear Admiral Dean McFadden receiving the salute from the ships’ captains.

"It’s a bit of a spectacle," Commodore Bob Davidson said Tuesday during a ship-to-shore telephone interview from HMCS Iroquois.

"When you’ve got 1,200 sailors sailing out of Halifax, it’s a huge impact on 1,200 families, more than 1,200 families. I thought it would be a nice way to make a significant departure and perhaps a show for the town, as well as for the admiral." A ninth vessel is scheduled to leave port today, he said.

As well as an operational exercise, the Tuesday morning sailpast was also a public relations exercise, the commodore said. "We want Canadians to know the navy is busy."

Five of the ships — the Iroquois, HMCS Preserver and three frigates — will head for Virginia, where they will be conducting several training exercises. Two Sea Kings and their flight crews will travel with the ships, and two Auroras out of Greenwood will also participate, the commodore said.

The Canadians will be joined by two American warships — a destroyer and a cruiser — and two auxiliary vessels. Exercises will include individual and ship-wide training as well as task force operations, and some of the ships will practise coming to the aid of a vessel involved in a disaster.

The Commodore is responsible for co-ordinating ships’ activities to prepare the fleet to respond to a range of operational missions that the government could ask their crews to perform.

Last year, the navy was on standby in case it was called in to help in the Lebanon crisis, Commodore Davidson said.

"The purpose of us doing this kind of training is to always have forces that are ready to deploy to meet government needs at short notice," he said. "We’ve done this before. The navy was the first out the door with Operation Apollo (the American-led war on terrorism) in 2002," he said.

Halifax’s grey skies began to pour down cold rain as the sailpast headed out of the harbour and Commodore Davidson wasn’t hoping for significantly better weather when he hits Virginian waters.

"The weather there is not that great this time of year," he said.

The ships are scheduled to return to Nova Scotia waters early next month. They will be at sea for most of the month, except for a weekend at the base in Norfolk, Va.

"We might get to do a little shopping," he said, but added that the crews will be very busy carrying out the exercises.

 
I watched it... didn't really float my boat.


Led by the destroyer HMCS Iroquois, left, eight Canadian navy ships round George’s Island on their sailpast in Halifax Harbour on Tuesday.

I thought it was Theodore tugboat leading the way?


Theodore%20Tugboat%20Logo.JPG
 
Spencer100 said:
Five of the ships — the Iroquois, HMCS Preserver and three frigates — will head for Virginia, where they will be conducting several training exercises. Two Sea Kings and their flight crews will travel with the ships, and two Auroras out of Greenwood will also participate, the commodore said.

The Canadians will be joined by two American warships — a destroyer and a cruiser — and two auxiliary vessels. Exercises will include individual and ship-wide training as well as task force operations, and some of the ships will practise coming to the aid of a vessel involved in a disaster.

So we have a destroyer, an AOR, 3 CPFs, but what were the other 3? I was going to say YAGs but those are only on the West coast.  ;D
 
cheeky_monkey said:
but what were the other 3?

I would hazard a strong guess and say MCDVs.  A similar picture was posted in my local paper today and showed the end of the trail of ships and had the Goose Bay in view.  Tried to find that pic to post but no luck yet.
 
airmich said:
I would hazard a strong guess and say MCDVs.  A similar picture was posted in my local paper today and showed the end of the trail of ships and had the Goose Bay in view.  Tried to find that pic to post but no luck yet.


MCVDs.... The jetty is all cleared up now.  ;D
 
Interesting... this article states:

The fleet included one destroyer, three frigates and four Maritime coastal defence vessels.

Doesn't match with the list from the original article posted.  But if you look at the caption under the picture from the morning article vice the afternoon.  Seems someone made a mistake somewhere!
 
Fair winds and calm seas to the East Coast Fleet

:cdn:
Hawk
 
How many mile of coastline do we have to defend?.
                                      Regards
 
time expired said:
How many mile of coastline do we have to defend?.
                                       Regards

One of the longest in the world....
 
time expired said:
How many mile of coastline do we have to defend?.
                                       Regards

243 042 kilometres

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/facts/coastline.html
 
For all the ships to make it out in a single sortie must make those sailors a bunch of happy people.

Have a good Ex boys & girls.  See ya dockside when you get back

Chimo!
 
I was watching them all leave from the port breezeway of the Freddy.  The other 3 were MCDVs.
 
geo said:
For all the ships to make it out in a single sortie must make those sailors a bunch of happy people.

Have a good Ex boys & girls.  See ya dockside when you get back

Chimo!

In Halifax, we have another 280 (in refit) 4 more Frigates, 3 more MCDVs and 3 more submarines in port so it's hardly "all" of them but it's nice to get a bunch of them out on exercise. When I joined in the late 70s we sailed as squadrons all the time with a tanker on exercise.
 
Ummm... let me put it this way, after all the cutbacks and force reductions, when was the last time so many canadian ships sailed out at any one time?

BTW, we know about the Subs  but, WRT those 4 Frigates and 3 MCDVs - are they fully crewed or is crew shortages the reason why they stayed dockside?
 
1 destroyer and 3 frigates actually...

Besides a multiship exercise costs a lot, takes months if not years to plan, not to mention all the other arrangements you have to make such as exercise support aircraft.

You also have to factor in the navy is mainly trying to support two of the frigates one that is on an SNMG deployment the other in the Gulf. Ships are sailing all the time out of Halifax, just because its not announced in the media does not mean there is nothing going on....
 
IN HOC SIGNO said:
In Halifax, we have another 280 (in refit) 4 more Frigates, 3 more MCDVs and 3 more submarines in port so it's hardly "all" of them but it's nice to get a bunch of them out on exercise. When I joined in the late 70s we sailed as squadrons all the time with a tanker on exercise.

Yes but we had to row in those days. ;D
 
geo said:
Ummm... let me put it this way, after all the cutbacks and force reductions, when was the last time so many canadian ships sailed out at any one time?

BTW, we know about the Subs  but, WRT those 4 Frigates and 3 MCDVs - are they fully crewed or is crew shortages the reason why they stayed dockside?

Yes my bad.....there are two ships across the pond right now.....one with the US carrier group en route to our favorite spot and one with the Standing Nato Force. I'm not sure what the operational sub is doing right now. The ships that sailed are mostly fully manned and there is a helo det with a few of them as well...the ones on ops for sure and a few with the ex that just sailed.
 
Actually, there are only three helo dets on each coast right now.  So, one of the two decks on ops has one, and two of the five decks on the exercise has one.

Interestingly, one of the ships that can't sail right now, Montreal, is getting ready for the CH148 trials det.
 
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