Canada Coast Guard – Cdr Webber on HMCS William Hall
Video / April 2, 2025
Transcript
Hi. My name is James Webber. I’m the commanding officer assigned to the CCGS Donjek, the new Coast Guard AOPS variant.
I’m here as a Coast Guard officer on the HMCS William Hall for a familiarization trip with the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship Platform, and to develop cooperation with the Navy. The Coast Guard is receiving two AOPS Coast Guard variants, being built at Irving Shipyard right now. It’s a very exciting time for us as sailors for the Canadian Coast Guard, to see the modern technology and to bring these new ships into service, and then deliver an effective program.
The key differences between the Coast Guard variant and the Royal Canadian Navy variant. We have a significant science suite on board the Coast Guard variant, for various sounders, water sampling, towed arrays. Another big one is there is no armament on the Coast Guard variants. We’re maintaining a completely civilian fleet and civilian operation with the Coast Guard.
The collaboration between the Navy and the Coast Guard, especially with the two AOPS the Coast Guard’s getting, we can work from their experience and their insight, and build from their history on maintenance and how to operate the ships. The coastal navigation, the search-and-rescue response, ice breaking. It’s been really interesting, sharing the stories back and forth about just the routine operations of the ship.
It’s been great, working with DND this past week, seeing how they operate, and sharing our insights with the Navy crew. It’s a very exciting prospect to collaborating more with our Navy colleagues, now that the Coast Guard is under DND as well.