HMCS MALASPINA

The MALASPINA was in the service of the Canadian Government for over thirty years, sometimes as C.G.S., i.e., Canadian Government Ship, civilian manned, and sometimes as HMC Ship, i.e., commissioned under the White Ensign.

Built to Canadian order, C.G.S. Malaspina was constructed by the Dublin Dockyards Company of Dublin, Ireland, being completed in 1913.  A coal-burning, single-screw ship of steel, she was 160 feet long, had a beam of 26½ feet and drew 12½ feet of water.  Having a maximum speed of 14½ knots, the Malaspina displaced 700 tons.

Her designed function was as a fisheries protection vessel on the Pacific coast and she arrived at Vancouver for the first time 21 November, 1913.  She was manned by three officers and thirty men and for that time was considered quite an up-to-date vessel being electrically lighted throughout and equipped with a powerful searchlight and a six-pounder Q.F. (quick-firing) gun forward.

The ship’s Commanding Officer at this time was Captain Holmes Newcombe and this officer remained in command until after the Great War part of the time as a Lieutenant of the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve.

As a ship of the Fisheries Protection Service, an organization administered by the Department of the Naval Service, the Malaspina’s career was in connection with both Fisheries and Naval affairs.  For most of the Great War, she remained C.G.S. retaining her civilian crew.

On 3 April, 1915, she seized the U.S. Schooner Prince Olaf caught fishing in territorial waters near Zays Island, and towed her into Prince Rupert.

From 23 May to 8 June of the same year she convoyed the Director of the Naval Service, Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill, on his inspection of ports and life-saving stations on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Much of 1916 and 1917 was spent as a ship of the Naval Examination Service stationed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca intercepting merchant ships from the Pacific for purposes of examining such ships’ papers and cargoes.  On various occasions, in addition to fishery patrols, the ship was employed to convoy the Admiral Superintendent at Esquimalt, Rear-Admiral W.O. Story, on tours of inspection.

On 1 December, 1917, C.G.S. Malaspina hoisted the White Ensign at Esquimalt becoming His Majesty’s Canadian Ship; Captain Newcombe became a Lieutenant, Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve.  For purposes of pay and discipline, the ship’s company were borne on the books of the depot ship HMCS RAINBOW, light cruiser.

Just a few days before the armistice, the MALASPINA was one of the ships that took part in the unsuccessful search for her sister-ship HMCS GALIANO, Lieutenant R.M. Pope, RCNVR, lost with all hands in a great storm in Barkley Sound, west coast of Vancouver Island, on the night of 30/31 October 1918.

In November 1919, Admiral Viscount Jellicoe arrived at Esquimalt so that the famous naval officer could advise the Canadian Government on future naval policy for the country.  The MALASPINA carried the Admiral and his staff on an inspection cruise of British Columbia waters and served as tender to the battle-cruiser flagship HMS New Zealand.

On 31 March 1920, the White Ensign was hauled down in the MALASPINA and the next day she re-commissioned as C.G.S. Malaspina to revert to her former task of fishery protection service.  But even at that, she continued with some naval duties for in May 1920 she was employed giving sea-training to the Cadets of the Royal Naval College of Canada at that time located in Esquimalt Dockyard.

All through the ‘twenties and ‘thirties, C.G.S. Malaspina continued her fishery patrol duties off the Pacific Coast.  One of the high lights of this period was when she joined HMC Destroyer PATRICIAN as escort to the yacht Aquilla bearing Lieutenant-Governor Randolph Bruce and party to Bella Coola Inlet, 26 August, 1927.  The occasion was the dedication of the cairn at Mackenzie Rock honouring the man who had daubed paint on the rock thus:

Alex. Mackenzie

from Canada

by land

22d July 1793

When in 1939, war again came, the MALASPINA once more responded to the call.  On 6 September, 1939, four days before Canada declared war, the White Ensign again flew from the ship’s stern.  The Commanding Officer was Lieutenant-Commander Walter Redford, RCNR.

The ship returned to her old duty of twenty years earlier – the Naval Examination Service.  Her chief stations were off William Head near Esquimalt and off Brotchie Ledge outside of Victoria harbour.  Still a coal-burner, HMCS MALASPINA proceeded at intervals to either Union Bay or Nanaimo for coal.

Even before the war’s end, it became obvious that the old ship was no longer needed in the Naval Service.  Indeed, after thirty years of service she had “had her time”.  In January, 1945, negotiations were begun for the ship’s disposal.  By February 1946, the MALASPINA was in the hands of the War Assets Corporation, being secured to trots in Bedwell Bay where so many surplus ships were moored to await sale or the shipbreaker’s hammer.  Later in the year the MALASPINA was sold to the Capital Iron and Metal Works Ltd., at Victoria, B.C., and there, after a life of some thirty-three years, she was broken up for scrap.