Champlain USCG

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Champlain USCG

Post by shipstamps » Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:43 am


Built by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Quincy Ma. For the US Coast Guard. 11 October 1928 launched under the name USCG CHAMPLAIN (CGC-47)., named after a lake located between New York and Vermont. She was one of the Lake Class of which 10 were built.
Displacement 1.546/1.983 tons, dim. 250 x 42 x 12.11ft. (draught), length bpp 236ft. One General Electric turbo-electric engine, 3.350 shp, one propeller, speed 14.8 knots cruising, 17.5 knots full speed.
Armament 1 – 5inch, 1 – 3 inch, 2 – 6pdrs. in 1929. Crew 97.Building cost 1.800.000 US dollar.
24 January 1929 commissioned. After she was commissioned she was based in New York.
24 January 1935 at 09.28pm while she was standing off the New Jersey coast in a position about 11 miles ENE of Cape May, New Jersey, she received a message that the Norwegian freighter TALISMAN was in collision with the US steamer MOHAWK in a position about 4 miles off Sea Girt, New Jersey.
Headed at full speed to the position given and informed the reefer SS LIMON which was standing by that she would arrive at 02.00am. The MOHAWK a hole was torn in her side, and it was at once apparent that she would sink; Capt. Wood tried to beach the vessel but the engine room flooded and the attempt failed. It was a bitterly cold day, and great difficulty was experienced in getting the lifeboats out, as the davits were thick with ice. At 10.14pm the MOHAWK reportedly had her starboard boats in the water, and that the vessel was on her side. The MOHAWK was underway from New York and had on board 107 crew and 54 passengers. The survivors were picked up by the LIMON and the Coast Guard cutter ALGONQUIN.
After the CHAMPLAIN arrived on the scene on 1.48am of the 25 January she took on board the 22 survivors from the LIMON, she left the scene at 04.12am, heading for New York, leaving the Coast Guard cutter ICARUS to search for more survivors. The ALGONQUIN picked up 37 passengers and 47 crew. Total lost 55 people.
During the 1920s and ‘30s she visited Barbados several times.
05 April 1941 President Roosevelt authorized that the 10 Lake Class Coast Guard cutters would be transferred to the United Kingdom on the Lend-Lease base.
12 May 1941 handed over to the Royal Navy at the Navy Yard at Brooklyn, NY. And renamed HMS SENNEN (Y21). A sloop of war one of the Banff Class. She joined the 1st Support Group
19 May together with the HMS JED she sank the German submarine U-954 by depth charges in the North Atlantic in a position South East of Cape Farewell, Greenland (54 54N 34 19W).
27 March 1946 returned to the United States, and renamed CHAMPAIGN, not again commissioned in the Coast Guard.
25 March 1948 sold.
SG1087

Source: Barbados Philatelic Bureau. http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/46.html http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/Champlain_1929.html Watercraft Philately. Auke Palmhof

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