Originally built as the stern trawler
Aspa Quarto at Cantiere Navale Apuania, Marine-Carrara in Italy, she was purchased by the Canadian Navy in July of 1975 and converted to a diving support vessel. She was commissioned into Maritime Command on November 10, 1978 at Lauzon, Quebec, becoming the second Canadian naval unit to bear the name
Cormorant. Serving the navy for 22 years, she was decommissioned on 2 July 1997 and changed hands a few times, most recently being sold to a Texas based firm to be used in diving operations.
Sitting idle docked at the Bridgewater wharf since 2000, the winter of 2014-2015 proved too much for her and she rolled over and sank to the bottom of the river. Near record snowfall collected on her deck, causing her to tilt, whereupon water began to enter and she sank. Fortunately she did not have far to sink and was still salvageable.
The salvaging comes at a cost, however, and the owner of the Cormorant, when last we heard, was being sued for $1 million to pay for the cost of righting and floating her. Several news stories on her plight were aired by both
CBC News and
CTV News, one of which is reproduced in part below.
Concerns over pollutants after
former Navy ship topples in N.S. harbour
CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Saturday, March 21, 2015 7:35PM EDT
Residents in Bridgewater, N.S. are growing increasingly concerned after a former Royal Canadian Navy ship docked in the town's harbour tilted over due to heavy ice and snow.
The vessel, previously commissioned as HMCS Cormorant, has been sitting in LaHave River with a forty-degree list since Wednesday.
The trouble began a few weeks ago, when the Canadian Coast Guard says ice and snow collected on the ship's deck, causing it to tilt. And when water found its way into the hold on Wednesday, the ship started to sink.
"The vessel seems to be sitting on the bottom, as it sits right now," Keith Laidlaw, a senior response officer with the Coast Guard, told CTV Atlantic. "It hasn't moved through the tide cycles in the last couple of days, so we don't believe it will move anymore, but that is speculation.”...
...What was once a proud part of the Canadian Forces, is now considered an eyesore by Bridgewater residents...
...The Coast Guard says that refloating a ship of this size is expected to be a complex and expensive process, which may require special equipment from outside the province.
The ship, which began as an Italian fishing trawler, was involved in several high-profile missions as a Royal Canadian Navy dive tender.
The onboard mini-sub was used to recover the bell from the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in Lake Superior in 1975 after it was hit by a storm.
The sub was also used to visit the wreck of the Breadalbane, which was a British merchant barque that was crushed by ice and sank in the Arctic in 1853. Following the disappearance John Franklin's expedition to the Northwest Passage, the Breadalbane helped to supply the vessels that were searching Arctic waters for Franklin and his crew...
From CTV News