HMCS Terra Nova

There has been only one vessel named HMCS Terra Nova in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Terra Nova (259) / Restigouche-class destroyer escort

Seventh and last of her class, HMCS Terra Nova was built by the Victoria Machinery Depot and commissioned on 6 June 1959, and shortly thereafter sailed east, to be on hand for the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and a review of NATO warships at Toronto, Ontario, in August. In July 1961 she carried the Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland on a series of visits to its southwest ports. In May 1965 she entered Halifax Shipyards to begin her conversion to an Improved Restigouche Escorts (IRE) class destroyer escort. She was fitted with the new sonar, which she tested for seven months before completing the IRE conversion, and ASROC launcher. She was the first of her class to undergo this conversion. She returned for duties in Esquimalt, British Columbia, on 4 May 1971. Thereafter, she participated in national sovereignty patrols and operational exercises throughout the Pacific. Between 21 November 1983 and 9 November 1984, HMCS Terra Nova received her mid-life refit at Esquimalt. Transferred to the east coast, she returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 12 December 1989.

Designated for service in the Persian Gulf in 1990, she was temporarily armed with two quadruple Harpoon missile-launchers, mounted just abaft the after deckhouse replacing the ASROC launcher; a Phalanx gun atop the Limbo well; two single 40-mm Bofors guns on the boat deck amidships, and shoulder-fired Blowpipe and Javelin missiles. Along with HMC Ships Athabaskan and Preserver, she left Halifax on 24 August, not to return until 7 April 1991. On 22 February 1994, HMCS Terra Nova stopped and boarded the cargo ship Pacifico while on a drug interdiction patrol and seized 5.9 tons of cocaine. Later that year, while taking part in blockade duty off Haiti, she rescued boatloads of refugees on two separate occasions. On 11 July 1997 she was placed in a “state of extended readiness” until finally paid off on 1 July 1998; she remained at Halifax until November 2009 then she was moved to Pictou, Nova Scotia, for dismantling.

• Builder: Victoria Machinery Depot, Victoria, British Columbia
• Date laid down: 14 November 1952
• Date launched: 21 June 1955
• Date commissioned: 6 June 1959
• Date paid off: 1 July 1999
• Displacement: 2428.4 tonnes
• Dimensions: 113.4.5 m x 12.8 m x 4.3 m
• Speed: 28 knots
• Crew: 214
• Armament: (original) four 3-inch (76-mm) (2 x II) guns and two Limbo mortars; (IRE) two 3-inch (76-mm) (1 x II) guns, one ASROC launcher, one Limbo mortar and six torpedo tubes 533-mm (2 x III)

Battle honours

• Gulf and Kuwait