HMCS Mackenzie

There has been only one vessel named HCMS Mackenzie in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Mackenzie (261)

Built by Canadian Vickers, Montréal, Quebec, the destroyer escort HCMS Mackenzie was commissioned on October 6, 1962. She was the lead ship of her class and gave her name to it.

Initially based at Halifax, Nova Scotia, she sailed for the West Coast on March 2, 1963, and spent the remainder of her service life in Pacific waters. Between May 25, 1986, and January 16, 1987, she received her Destroyer Life Extension (DELEX) refit at Ship Repair Unit (Pacific) in Esquimalt, British Columbia.

Throughout her 30 years of service, she visited 96 foreign ports and steamed 845,640 nautical miles, either as a unit of the 4th Canadian Destroyer Squadron or of Training Group Pacific where she was used to instruct junior naval officers in ship handling, navigation and marine engineering. HCMS Mackenzie was paid off on August 3, 1993.

On September 16, 1995, like several of her sisters, HCMS Mackenzie was sunk off Rum Island near Sidney, British Columbia, as a sport-divers' venue.

• Builder: Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montréal, Quebec
• Laid down: December 15, 1958



• Launched: May 25, 1961
• Date commissioned: October 6, 1962
• Date paid off: August 3, 1993
• Displacement: 2,380 tons
• Dimensions: 111.6 m x 12.8 m x 4.1 m
• Speed: 28 knots
• Crew: 245
• Armament: four 3-inch (76-mm) (2 double mounts), 2 Limbo anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mortars, six ASW torpedoes tubes (2 triple mounts).

Motto: “By Virtue and Valour”