Victoria HMCS

[john sefton]

HMCS Victoria is a long-range hunter-killer (SSK) submarine of the Royal Canadian Navy, the lead ship of her class. She is named after the city of Victoria, British Columbia. She was purchased from the Royal Navy, and is the former HMS Unseen (S41). The class was also renamed from the Upholder class.
The submarine's keel was laid down as HMS Unseen at Cammell Laird's Birkenhead yard on 12 August 1987. The submarine was launched on 14 November 1989 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 20 July 1991. Unseen was decommissioned on 6 April 1994, and placed in reserve in June.
Transfer and Canadian service
Looking to discontinue the operation of diesel-electric boats, the British government offered to sell Unseen and her sister submarines to Canada in 1993. The offer was accepted in 1998. The four boats were leased to the Canada for US$427 million, plus US$98 million for upgrades and alteration to Canadian standards.
Unseen was the first to be reactivated, and was due to enter service in May 2000. However, problems were discovered with the piping welds on all four submarines, which delayed the reactivation. Unseen was handed over to the Canadian Navy on 6 October 2000 and departed for Canada on 9 October. For the majority of the transit across the Atlantic, the submarine travelled submerged, arriving on 23 October. The submarine was commissioned into Maritime Command as Victoria at Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On arrival in Halifax, Victoria was placed into dockyard hands for a refit.This was originally scheduled to take six months, but was not completed until 2003. In April 2002, while in drydock, a dent was discovered in the hull below the waterline. This contributed to the delayed refit. Victoria was then transferred to Esquimalt, British Columbia, becoming the first Canadian submarine stationed in the Pacific since the 1974 decommissioning of HMCS Rainbow. The submarine was in and out of dock during 2004 and 2005, culminating in a planned two-year repair program in late 2005.
Between 2000 and 2010, Victoria had only been at sea for 115 days; and was expected to re-enter service in mid-2011, after six years in drydock.
As of March 2011, repairs were still ongoing. As of 23 April 2011, the submarine was reported to be out of drydock and going through trials. On 5 December 2011, Victoria departed Esquimalt Harbour to conduct sea trials and crew training. Victoria arrived at Bangor Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor for deperming (degaussing or the erasure of magnetism) on 13 December 2011, returning to Esquimalt on 16 December.
On 16 March 2012, Victoria fired her first exercise torpedo since beginning her refit. While participating in RIMPAC 2012 exercises, Victoria successfully fired a Mark 48 torpedo on 17 July 2012 striking and sinking the discarded USNS Concord. Victoria was declared fully operational in 2012.
Victoria participated in Operation Caribbe in 2013. In July 2014, Victoria sailed to Hawaii to participate in RIMPAC exercises.
In late 2016, it was announced that all four submarines would reach the end of their service life before 2025 without a large-scale upgrade and refit program. The SELEX (Submarine Life Extension) program was introduced as a result. SELEX will upgrade the outer and inner hulls of the submarines, extending their service life into the early 2030s. SELEX will also upgrade and/or replace the submarines' engines, power systems, propulsion systems, sonar system, countermeasures, communications systems and warfare suite. The program is expected to cost anywhere from CAD$1.5 billion to CAD$3 billion, the latter of which is only slightly less than the estimated cost of replacing the fleet with new submarines.
To deal with the ongoing battery issues aboard sister boat Chicoutimi that began in May 2017, the main battery was transferred from Victoria to Chicoutimi.
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