Ships of the class under construction in 1918 | |
Class overview | |
---|---|
Name | Navarin-class minesweeper |
Builders | Canadian Car and Foundry |
Operators | French Navy |
Cost | $2.5 million (for entire class) |
Built | 1918 |
Planned | 12 |
Completed | 12 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Minesweeper |
Length | 41.3 metres (135 ft) |
Beam | 6.9 metres (23 ft) |
Propulsion | Twin screws |
Speed | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
Complement | 36 crew |
Armament | 2 × 100 mm (4 in) deck-mounted guns |
Notes | [1] [2] |
The Navarin class was a class of 12 minesweepers built by Canadian Car and Foundry for the French Navy in 1918, near the end of World War I. The class is mainly remembered for the disappearance of two of its members, Inkerman and Cerisoles, during their maiden voyage on Lake Superior in November 1918.
The ships were designed to clear naval mines along the coast of France and in the English Channel. [3] French naval documents refer to the ships as chalutiers rather than dragueurs de mines, as the ships were designed to function as fishing trawlers after the war.[ citation needed ]
A contract for $2.5 million awarded to Canadian Car and Foundry to construct 12 minesweepers for the French government was reported in February 1918. [4] Built in what was then known as Fort William, Ontario, [5] half of the order was completed by early November 1918, [6] and the entire order was finished before the end of the year. [5]
Each vessel was 135 feet (41 m) long and rated at 321 gross register tonnage. [1] [2] Their steel-framed wooden hulls were divided into four water-tight compartments. Each ship was fitted with twin screws and a single funnel, and had a top speed of about 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). Two 100 mm (4 in) deck-mounted guns, with a range of about 20 kilometres (22,000 yd; 12 mi), [3] were located forward and aft.
In November 1918, three of the minesweepers—Inkerman, Cerisoles, and Sebastopol—encountered severe weather while attempting to cross Lake Superior; Sebastopol reached its destination, but the other two ships and their crews were lost; no wreckage of the ships has been located. [7]
A total of 12 Navarin-class minesweepers were built; their names, as listed below, were published in The Gazette of Montreal in November 1918. [8] Seven members of the class are known to have been lost; the fate of the other five members of the class is unclear.
Hull # | Original name | Launched [9] | Completed [9] | Namesake | Disposition | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Navarin | 29 July 1918 | 20 September 1918 | Battle of Navarino (1827) | Deleted 1965 | [ citation needed ] |
2 | Mantoue | 13 August 1918 | 5 October 1918 | Siege of Mantua (1796–1797) | Sold 1949 | [ citation needed ] |
3 | St. Georges | 21 August 1918 | 26 October 1918 | Battle of Nuits Saint Georges (1870) | Deleted 1952 | [ citation needed ] |
4 | Leoben | 29 August 1918 | 1 November 1918 | Peace of Leoben (1797) | Deleted 1933 | [ citation needed ] |
5 | Palestro | 19 August 1918 | 16 October 1918 | Battle of Palestro (1859) | Deleted 1936 | [ citation needed ] |
6 | Lutzen | 31 August 1918 | 6 November 1918 | Battle of Lützen (1813) | Wrecked on Nauset Beach, Cape Cod 1939 | [5] [10] [11] |
7 | Bautzen | 14 September 1918 | 12 November 1918 | Battle of Bautzen (1813) | Foundered off Saint Pierre Island 1961 as Peary MV | [5] [12] |
8 | Inkerman | 3 October 1918 | 21 November 1918 | Battle of Inkerman (1854) | Lost without trace 1918 | [1] |
9 | Cerisoles | 25 September 1918 | 21 November 1918 | Battle of Cérisoles (1544) | [2] | |
10 | Sebastopol | 30 September 1918 | 21 November 1918 | Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) | Sold 1920; wrecked off Cape St. Francis 1933 | [13] [14] [15] |
11 | Malakoff | 1 October 1918 | 17 November 1918 | Battle of Malakoff (1855) | Sold 1920; foundered at Bay Roberts 1974 as Illex MV | [13] [16] |
12 | Seneff | 20 September 1918 | 15 November 1918 | Battle of Seneffe (1674) | Sold 1920; wrecked near Canso, Nova Scotia 1955 | [13] [17] [18] |
Sebastopol or Sevastopol is a city on the Crimean peninsula.
Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F), also variously known as "Canadian Car & Foundry" or more familiarly as "Can Car", was a manufacturer of buses, railway rolling stock, forestry equipment, and later aircraft for the Canadian market. CC&F history goes back to 1897, but the main company was established in 1909 from an amalgamation of several companies and later became part of Hawker Siddeley Canada through the purchase by A.V. Roe Canada in 1957. Today the remaining factories are part of Alstom after its acquisition of Bombardier Transportation completed in 2021.
Inkerman can refer to:
Cory is a recycling and waste management company based in London. Originally founded as William Cory & Son in 1896, the company has operated vessels on the River Thames for more than 125 years, transporting a range of commodities and materials including coal, oil, aggregates and waste. Ships from Cory's fleet supported Britain's war efforts in both world wars, with 30 ships being lost during the conflicts. From the 1980s onwards, the business has become increasingly focused on waste management.
William Hamilton and Company was a British shipyard in Port Glasgow, Scotland. The company was bought by Lithgow Ltd., which later became Scott Lithgow and was nationalised as part of British Shipbuilders in 1977.
Ceresole may refer to:
Inkerman and Cerisoles were two French minesweepers that vanished during their maiden voyage in a storm on Lake Superior on 24 November 1918. No trace of the two vessels has ever been found. The ships' crews, 76 French sailors and two Canadian captains, disappeared along with the minesweepers. Inkerman and Cerisoles are the last warships to disappear on the Great Lakes, and their sinkings caused the largest loss of life of any Lake Superior shipwreck.
The Superior Shoal is a geologic shoal of approximately 20 square miles (52 km2) located 50 miles (80 km) north of Copper Harbor, Michigan in the middle of Lake Superior, the highest point of which lies only 21 feet (6.4 m) below the lake's surface. The shoal is a hump of Keweenawan basaltic lava flows with ophitic interiors and amygdaloidal tops in an otherwise deep part of the lake, and though fishermen had known of its existence for generations it was only officially charted in 1929 by the United States Lake Survey. It has been theorized that the World War I French minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, which disappeared during their maiden voyage on Lake Superior in mid-November 1918, may have run aground on this shoal and some have theorized that it may have been to blame for both the disappearance of the "Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes" on November 21, 1902 and the sinking of the "Titanic of the Great Lakes" on November 10, 1975. It is one of the known off-shore spawning and foraging habitats for the juvenile lean lake trout.
The McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company was a large-scale wartime ship manufacturing shipyard, located at the city of Riverside, near Duluth. McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding was at 110 Spring Street, Duluth, Minnesota, now the site of the West Duluth's Spirit Lake Marina. The shipyard was located on St. Louis River Estuary at western part of Lake Superior. McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company was founded by Alexander McDougall (1845-1923) in 1917 to build ships for World War I. McDougall Duluth Shipbuilding Company and the Superior Shipbuilding Company were called the Twin Ports shipbuilding industry of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Once built the ships can travel to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Seaway.