Sydney is an urban community located in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. Situated on Cape Breton Island's east coast, it belongs administratively to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Sydney was founded in 1785 by the British, was incorporated as a city in 1904, and dissolved on 1 August 1995, when it was amalgamated into the regional municipality.
Solway Lass is a two-masted schooner. She was built in the Netherlands in 1902 and is currently operated out of Airlie Beach, Australia as a holiday sailor in the Whitsunday Islands.
North Sydney is a former town and current community in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
USS Alameda, was a United States Navy tanker in commission from 1919 to 1922. She was built as the civilian tanker SS Alameda, but transferred to the U.S. Navy after completion in 1919. She was sold for commercial service and operated under the names SS Olean and SS Sweep before she was transferred to the Navy again in World War II as USS Silver Cloud (IX-143).
HMCS Cape Breton was a Royal Canadian Navy Cape-class maintenance ship. Originally built for the Royal Navy as HMS Flamborough Head in 1944 she was transferred in 1952. Upon her commissioning she was the second ship to bear the name Cape Breton. She served operationally from 1953–64, when she was laid up. She was used as a floating machine shop until the late 1990s, before being sold for use as an artificial reef off the coast of British Columbia.
SS Caribou was a Newfoundland Railway passenger ferry that ran between Port aux Basques, in the Dominion of Newfoundland, and North Sydney, Nova Scotia between 1928 and 1942. During the Battle of the St. Lawrence the ferry was attacked and sunk by the German submarine U-69 in October 1942, while traversing the Cabot Strait as part of her three weekly SPAB convoys. As a civilian vessel, she had women and children on board, and many of them were among the 137 who died. Her sinking, and large death toll, made it clear that the war had really arrived on Canada's and Newfoundland's home front, and is cited by many historians as the most significant sinking in Canadian-controlled waters during the Second World War.
USS Venus (AK-135) was a Crater-class cargo ship in the service of the United States Navy in World War II. Originally liberty ship SS William Williams, named after William Williams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, it was taken over by the Navy after being damaged in a torpedo attack and renamed after the planet Venus. It was the only ship of the Navy to bear this name.
The Cape class consists of two escort maintenance ships of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). The ships were built in Canada as Beachy Head-class maintenance ships for the Royal Navy, but were acquired by Canada in 1952. They were commissioned into the RCN in 1959 as HMCS Cape Breton and HMCS Cape Scott. Cape Scott served on the east coast until 1972, after which the ship became a stationary repair vessel at Halifax, Nova Scotia until 1975. The vessel was broken up in 1978. Cape Breton served initially as a school ship on the east coast before transferring to the west coast of Canada in 1959. The maintenance ship remained in service until 1964, when she was laid up at Esquimalt, British Columbia as a maintenance facility. Cape Breton remained in this service until 1993. The vessel was then sold for use as an artificial reef and sunk off the coast of British Columbia.
SS Medic was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line which entered service in 1899. Medic was one of five Jubilee Class ocean liners built specifically to service the Liverpool–Cape Town–Sydney route. The ship's name pertained to the ancient Persian region of Media and was pronounced Meedick.
Convoy SC 94 was the 94th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool. The ships departed Sydney on 31 July 1942 and were met by Mid-Ocean Escort Force Group C-1.
The Action of 21 July 1781 was a naval skirmish off the harbor of Spanish River, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, during the American Revolution. Two French Navy frigates, led by Admiral Latouche Tréville and La Pérouse, engaged a convoy of 18 British ships and their escorts from the Royal Navy. The two French frigates captured two of the British escorts while the remainder of the British convoy escaped.
Empire Cloud was a 5,969 GRT cargo ship which was built in 1940 by William Pickersgill & Sons Ltd, Sunderland for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). She was torpedoed on her maiden voyage, but repaired and returned to service. In 1942, she was torpedoed and sank whilst under tow to port.
The Nimbin was a steel screw steamer built in 1927 at Copenhagen, that was the first motor vessel placed into the New South Wales coastal trade. It was owned and operated by the North Coast Steam Navigation Company and was the first Australian registered merchant ship to be lost during World War II when it struck a mine laid by the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin. The Nimbin was on its way from Coffs Harbour to its home port, Sydney, with a cargo of bundled three-ply timber and a large number of pigs. One third of the ship was blown away and it sank in three minutes. Seven men were killed. The remaining thirteen clung to bundles of plywood. Some hours later an air force plane from RAAF Base Rathmines saw the survivors and directed the coastal ship SS Bonalbo to the scene to pick up the survivors.
QSMV Dominion Monarch was a UK passenger and refrigerated cargo liner. Her name was a reference to the Dominion of New Zealand. The unusual prefix "QSMV" stood for quadruple-screw motor vessel.
Wacousta was a steam cargo ship built in 1908 by the Archibald McMillan & Son of Dumbarton for the Wacousta Dampskibskompani, originally managed by Peter Anton Grøn of Sandefjord, and subsequently transferred to Christensen & Stenseth in March 1915. She was named after a fictional character from a novel Wacousta by John Richardson, published in 1832. The ship was primarily employed as a collier during her career.
Langton Grange was a refrigerated steam cargo ship built in 1896 by the Workman, Clark & Co. of Belfast for Houlder Brothers & Co. of London to transport meat and other produce from Australia and South America to United Kingdom.
Alacrity was launched at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1814. New owners transferred her registry to London and she then spent much of her career sailing between Britain and the Cape of Good Hope, sometimes going on to India. She made at least one voyage to New South Wales. New owners in 1829 returned her registry to Newcastle. She was wrecked in 1830.
