HMCS Dundurn

There has been only 1 vessel named Dundurn in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Dundurn Z41 / 502

The Dun Class tanker HMCS Dundurn was built originally for the Royal Canadian Navy to fill a World War II need. Prior to building HMCS Dundurn, a barge and a dredge had been converted to tankers, but they were not sufficient to answer all demands. For this reason orders were placed for the construction of 2 small ships, HMCS Dundurn and HMCS Dundalk. They were small tankers but had the carrying capacity sufficient to refill escort vessels for the hazardous voyages they undertook to protect merchant ship convoys as well as to maintain supplies in the storage tanks of ports along the east coast of Canada. HMCS Dundurn was built in Walkerville, Ontario and commissioned there on November 25, 1943.

HMCS Dundurn set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia, the same day she was commissioned, in order to escape the freeze-up in the Saint-Lawrence River. On arrival, she was berthed at the Halifax Shipyards, so that the work still outstanding could be completed. On May 3, 1944, she sailed, with a cargo of oil, in a convoy to Sydney, Nova Scotia. After she had discharged the cargo, she remained Sydney to refuel escort ships lying there. This was the first of many similar voyages along the coast from Halifax to Sydney and other ports, such as Shelburne, Digby and Liverpool in Nova Scotia, Saint John, New Brunswick and St John’s Newfoundland. Occasionally, on these missions she sailed independently, but more often, while the U-boats continued to lurk in those dark waters, in convoy. After the war, HMCS Dundurn was employed in Sydney, landing stores and fuel from the escort ships that were pending disposal.

At war’s end the navy expressed an interest to retain HMCS Dundurn as a naval auxiliary vessel, emphasizing their preference for her over commercial tankers. Both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts required one each for ship fuelling and coast fuel deliveries. It was decided to sail HMCS Dundurn to Esquimalt, British Columbia wile her sister-ship remained in Halifax. Manned with a naval reserve crew, augmented by a few able seamen from the merchant navy, HMCS Dundurn left on November 10, 1946 in water ballast and arrived in Esquimalt on December 29, 1946. She was paid off January 2, 1947, and subsequently served with a civilian crew as Canadian Naval Auxiliary Vessel (CNAV) and Canadian Forces Auxiliary Vessel (CFAV) Dundurn, bringing oil from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the storage tanks at the base in Esquimalt and delivering to ships in refit and to those too big to go alongside the fueling jetties. She served until 1993.

• Displacement : 950 tons
• Dimensions: 54.5 m x 10.1 m x 4 m
• Speed: 11 knots
• Crew: 30
• Armament: (wartime) one 12-pound (5.45 kg ) gun and two 20-mm guns (2 x I)