BANFF HMS (Y-43)

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

BANFF HMS (Y-43)

Post by aukepalmhof » Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:50 pm

Built as a Americans Coast Guard cutter by General Engineering and Dry-dock Company at Oakland, CA.
12 April 1930 launched under the name USCGC SARANAC, named after a lake in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. She was one of the “Lake” class of which 10 were built.
Displacement 2.075 tons, dim. 250 x 42 x 12.11 ft. (mean draught), length bpp 236 ft.
Powered by one turbine driven electric-motor of general Electric, 3.350 shp., speed 14.8 knots cruising, 17.5 knots maximum. One screw. Two boilers.
Cruising with economical speed she had a radius of 7.542 miles
Armament 1 – 5 inch, 1 – 3 inch, 2 – 6pdrs. guns in 1929
Complement 97.
Building cost hull and machinery $900.000.
Commissioned 02 October 1930.

After her commissioning was she based at Galveston, Texas. Among her duties included service as a Cadet Cruise vessel. One of the most interesting and instructive Cadet Cruises was that undertaken by SARANAC and SEBAGO in the summer of 1940. Leaving New London, Connecticut on 25 May 1940.
The SARANAC carried 53 cadets. Both vessels returned to New London on 10 August, having visited, Norfolk, Virginia, Havana, Cuba, Cristobal, Panama, Acapulco, Mexico, San Francisco, California, San Pedro, California, Balboa, Panama, Norfolk and Lynnhaven Roads, Virginia, spending 45 days at sea and 33 days in port.

On 5 April 1941, President Roosevelt authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to transfer ten 250-foot cutters of the United States Coast Guard to the United Kingdom. This action was taken in according with the terms of the Act of 11 March 1941. One of this cutters was the SARANAC.
On that day she received orders when everything was in good working orders, she had to proceed to the Navy yard at Brooklyn NY.
At this yard she was transferred on 30 April 1941, and renamed HMS BANFF (Y-43).
The 10 ships of this class were mostly used for escort vessels from the U.K. to Gibraltar and Freetown.
At that time she were the largest escort sloops in the Royal Navy, somewhat slower as a surfaced U-boat but their 5 inch guns might persuade an evading U-boat to submerge.

After the war she was handed back to the US navy and returned 27 Feb. 1946 to the States, renamed SEBEG (WPG 164).
27 May 1947, renamed in USCGC TAMPA with homeport Mobile, Alabama.
Used thereafter for search and rescue and law enforcement missions in the Gulf of Mexico.

10 August 1954, decommissioned, she was the last survivor of her class, and sold on 16 Feb. 1959.

Marshall Islands 1990 45c sg332, scott258.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/Saranac_1930.html http://uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=3
British Escort Ships WW II by H.T.Lenton. Ships of the Royal Navy by Colledge.
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