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The Ship’s Wheel of the former HMCS Porte de la Reine.
by John MacFarlane 2016
I was contacted by Aleksandr Zhuravel in 2015 informing me that he had the ship’s wheel from the former HMCS Porte de la Reine.
Ship’s wheel salvaged from the former HMCS Porte de la Reine. Note that the turk’shead on the wheel spoke to mark midship position of the rudder is no longer present. (Photo from the Aleksandr Zhuravel collection. )
The Porte de la Reine served in the Royal Canadian Navy in 1952 & 1966–1996. These small vessels, based on a trawler design, were originally intended to be capable of opening and closing anti–submarine nets at the entrance to strategic harbours.
HMCS Porte de la Reine (YMG.184) was built in 1952 at Victoria BC by Victoria Machinery Depot Ltd. with dimensions of 125.5’ x 26.3’ x 13’ steel hull. She was powered by a Dominion Alco inline six diesel, with Vulcan fluid coupling, reduction gear box, single screw.
She was sold in 1996. HMCS Porte de la Reine was renamed as Porte de la Reine. She was sold to an owner in Puget Sound, Washington (VIN CG058347 recreational classification). She does not appear to be registered in 2012. The last official report of her on the internet and other sources was at Seattle WA USA in 2000. An attempt to rebuild these vessels into pocket cruise ships failed and they have become derelicts in the Puget Sound area as the following images show.
HMCS Porte de la Reine as hundreds of naval reservists would remember her. (Photo from the Aleksandr Zhuravel collection. )
The former HMCS Porte de la Reine in Puget Sound Washington.(Photo from the Aleksandr Zhuravel collection. )
The former HMCS Porte de la Reine in Puget Sound Washington.(Photo from the Aleksandr Zhuravel collection. )
The former HMCS Porte de la Reine in Puget Sound Washington.(Photo from the Aleksandr Zhuravel collection. )
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John (2016) The Ship’s Wheel of the former HMCS Porte de la Reine. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Porte_dela_Reine.php
Site News: April 17, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,205 vessel histories (with 15,628 images and 13,173 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.