HMCS Vancouver (F6A)

During the First World War, Royal Navy intelligence investigated German torpedo craft and found that they were more lightly armed than the designs the United Kingdom was building. The Royal Navy altered their destroyer designs so that the ships would be less expensive. This meant that the design known as the Admiralty modified 'Trenchant' or S class would be smaller, faster and less expensive, ships which could be built quickly.^[1] The ships had a complement of 90 officers and ratings.^[2]

The Thornycroft version of the S class displaced 1,087 long tons (1,104 t). The vessels were 276 feet (84 m) long, had a beam of 27 feet 4 inches (8.33 m) and a draught of 10 feet 6 inches (3.20 m). They were larger than their sister ships of the Yarrow or Admiralty design. The S class had a trawler-like bow with a more sharply sheered and turtleback forecastle.^[2]

The Thornycroft S-class design was propelled by two shafts driven by Brown-Curtis steam turbines powered by three Yarrow boilers (built by Thornycroft). This created 27,000 shaft horsepower (20,000 kW).^[2][3] This gave the ships a maximum speed of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph).

S-class destroyers were armed with three quick-firing (QF) 4-inch (102 mm)/45 calibre Mk IV guns in three single mounts. The forecastle gun was placed on a raised platform. They were also equipped with a QF 2-pounder (40 mm) pom-pom for use against aircraft. The vessels also had four Lewis machine guns installed.^[2][3]

All S-class destroyers had four 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes installed in two twin mounts. Unlike the Admiralty and Yarrow designs, all Thornycroft designed ships were equipped with two 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes. Arrayed along the sides of the ship, they were fitted to fire through a narrow aperture.^[2]

Royal Navy

Toreador was ordered in June 1917 as part of the second order of Thornycroft S-class destroyer for the Royal Navy.^[2] She was laid down in November 1917 and launched on 7 December 1918. She was placed in reserve at HMNB Portsmouth in May 1919.^[4]

Royal Canadian Navy

The former HMCS Vancouver being prepared for recycling.

Toreador, along with her sister Torbay, were loaned by the British government to Canada in 1927 to replace their two existing destroyers, Patrician and Patriot.^[5][6] At the same time the Canadian Government commissioned the construction of two further destroyers, Saguenay and Skeena at Portsmouth.^[7] The vessel was renamed Vancouver, after the famous explorer, George Vancouver.^[6] Vancouver and Champlain were the first two ships with names associated with Canada.^[1]

During the 1930s Vancouver served on the west coast of Canada alongside Skeena.^[8] The vessel was used as a training vessel, visiting many ports along the coast.^[9] In 1930, Vancouver was named in the London Naval Treaty, which put limits on the amount of warships a nation could have and their size. Initially the west coast training ships did not have a cruise through the Caribbean Sea like their east coast comrades. However, after a couple of winters in Canadian waters, Vancouver was sent to join Champlain in the West Indies.^[10]

In 1931, the British Foreign Office requested that Canada send one of its vessels to El Salvador due to an increased threat to British persons and property there following a rebellion until a Royal Navy ship could arrive. Arriving on 23 January 1932, Vancouver and Skeena went to separate ports initially. Vancouver was sent to Port La Union, where the ship refueled and re-provisioned. While there the British Charge d'Affairs sent an order by telephone for the ship to land an armed platoon, however, the order was never followed. Most of the time at Port La Union was spent passing idle and the destroyer remained there until 25 January when she departed for Acajutla. She remained at Acajutla until after the senior officers had returned from their inspection of what became known as la matanza.^[11][12][13]

During a training deployment to the Caribbean Sea in 1934, Vancouver took part in the longest cruise attempted by the Royal Canadian Navy to that point. On that same deployment, the ship spent one week training with the British Home Fleet.^[14]

By 1935 the condition of the two S-class destroyers in Canadian service had deteriorated significantly. Custom at this time was to give an active destroyer a thorough and complete refit (referred to as a D2) every six to eight years. Vancouver, which had been completed in 1918, had never undergone such a refit. She and her sister ship were surveyed by naval engineers in 1934 and the report concluded that it would cost $165,000 to refit both ships.^[15] This had to be done as the loan conditions with the British government stipulated that the ships had to be returned in good condition. Rendering them safe for an ocean crossing to the United Kingdom would still cost $50,000 more than a standard refit.^[15]

Canada intended to return the S-class destroyers to the United Kingdom as they were considered antiquated. The United Kingdom initially wanted to have them scrapped at home, however they agreed to have them broken up in Canada as they were no longer sure of the two vessels crossing the ocean. It was also agreed that the armament of the destroyers would remain in Canadian stockpiles after the ships were broken up.^[16] Vancouver were noted as being set for disposal in 1936.^[1] She was paid off on 25 November 1936 and broken up in 1937.^[7][8]

Discover more about Design related topics

S-class destroyer (1917)

S-class destroyer (1917)

The S class was a class of 67 destroyers ordered for the Royal Navy in 1917 under the 11th and 12th Emergency War Programmes. They saw active service in the last months of the First World War and in the Russian and Irish Civil Wars during the early 1920s. Most were relegated to the reserve by the mid-1920s and subsequently scrapped under the terms of the London Naval Treaty. Eleven survivors saw much action during the Second World War.

Beam (nautical)

Beam (nautical)

The beam of a ship is its width at its widest point. The maximum beam (BMAX) is the distance between planes passing through the outer extremities of the ship, beam of the hull (BH) only includes permanently fixed parts of the hull, and beam at waterline (BWL) is the maximum width where the hull intersects the surface of the water.

Sister ship

Sister ship

A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a common naming theme, either being named after the same type of thing or person or with some kind of alliteration. Typically the ship class is named for the first ship of that class. Often, sisters become more differentiated during their service as their equipment are separately altered.

Naval trawler

Naval trawler

Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built to naval specifications, others adapted from civilian use. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust vessels designed to work heavy trawls in all types of weather, and had large clear working decks. A minesweeper could be created by replacing the trawl with a mine sweep. Adding depth charge racks on the deck, ASDIC sonar below, and a 3-inch (76 mm) or 4-inch (102 mm) gun in the bow equipped the trawler for anti-submarine duties.

Forecastle

Forecastle

The forecastle is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers.

Steam turbine

Steam turbine

A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbine involves advanced metalwork to form high-grade steel alloys into precision parts using technologies that first became available in the 20th century; continued advances in durability and efficiency of steam turbines remains central to the energy economics of the 21st century.

Knot (unit)

Knot (unit)

The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, exactly 1.852 km/h. The ISO standard symbol for the knot is kn. The same symbol is preferred by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), while kt is also common, especially in aviation, where it is the form recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The knot is a non-SI unit. The knot is used in meteorology, and in maritime and air navigation. A vessel travelling at 1 knot along a meridian travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour.

Quick-firing gun

Quick-firing gun

A quick-firing or rapid-firing gun is an artillery piece, typically a gun or howitzer, which has several characteristics which taken together mean the weapon can fire at a fast rate. Quick-firing was introduced worldwide in the 1880s and 1890s and had a marked impact on war both on land and at sea.

QF 2-pounder naval gun

QF 2-pounder naval gun

The 2-pounder gun, officially the QF 2-pounder and universally known as the pom-pom, was a 40 mm (1.6 in) British autocannon, used as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy. The name came from the sound that the original models make when firing. This QF 2-pounder was not the same gun as the Ordnance QF 2-pounder, used by the British Army as an anti-tank gun and a tank gun, although they both fired 2 lb (0.91 kg), 40 mm (1.6 in) projectiles.

Lewis gun

Lewis gun

The Lewis gun is a First World War–era light machine gun. Designed privately in the United States though not adopted there, the design was finalised and mass-produced in the United Kingdom, and widely used by troops of the British Empire during the war. It had a distinctive barrel cooling shroud and top-mounted pan magazine. The Lewis served to the end of the Korean War, and was widely used as an aircraft machine gun during both World Wars, almost always with the cooling shroud removed, as air flow during flight offered sufficient cooling.

Torpedo tube

Torpedo tube

A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes.

Keel laying

Keel laying

Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship.