For the first time ever, all eight Orca-class vessels belonging to the Royal Canadian Navy sailed together in perfect unison just off the Esquimalt coast for a historic training exercise.
In the early morning of Wednesday, Jan. 29, the eight ships, the only ones in Canada, set off for PODEX (Photographic Orca Deployment Exercise), where they gracefully performed manoeuvres around each other to practice communication 香蕉视频直播� one of the most important aspects of sailing 香蕉视频直播� as part of a course for naval warfare officers (NWO).
"It's sort of like doing ballet with ships at sea," said acting Sub-Lt. Ben Roth, an NWO based at CFB Esquimalt.
Sailors need to be essentially perfect while navigating around other boats, he explained.
"If you can imagine eight vessels all within 100 yards of each other, manoeuvring all at once, you need to make sure that you know exactly where everyone's going to go," he said. On the bridge of the ship, naval communicators decode signals from the command vessel to know what to do, and what others are doing.
The Orca-class ships are mainly used for training purposes as they are smaller 香蕉视频直播� about 33-metres long 香蕉视频直播� than the 55-metre Kingston-class vessels and the 134-metre Halifax-class frigates. They make it easier for new sailors to acclimate on the water and learn their trade before moving up to a patrol or defence vessel.
Conducting manoeuvre exercises with the Orcas also helps get NWO's ready for bigger, though similar, exercises with allied navies like the Rim of the Pacific in Hawaii, the world's largest international navy exercise.
SLt. SeeEun (Rachel) Kim, an NWO who was acting as the second officer of the watch, explained that one person takes the helm and physically "drives" the ship, but it ultimately takes a crew, headed by the officer of the watch, to make sure everything goes smoothly.
"You can kind of think of it as driving a car. There's one person really ultimately driving the car. With a ship, there's one person that is the brain of the person who drives the ship," she said. "The officer of the watch themselves run the show. They ensure that the mission is accomplished."
Participating in exercises like this is important because they have to train like they fight, she said. "We conduct these exercises to ensure that all of our skills are at their top peak."
Lt. Jeremy Morrissette, an NWO, explained that it's important to continue to sail the aging ships 香蕉视频直播� which were launched between 2006 and 2008 香蕉视频直播� to both identify engineering issues and to push them "to their full potential." But keeping them all afloat at the time is "definitely a challenge," he said.
"There are a lot of people who have been working really hard to make that happen. The engineering department has been working pretty much day and night for the past couple of weeks trying to get everything set up and get all those ships on the water."
Despite and military budget cuts, Morrissette says the exercise is a great example of the navy being effective while making do with what they have.
"It's just a good example of how we're able to do quite a lot with very little," he explained. "A lot of people said that this might not sound that spectacular to someone at home, being able to send the eight ships at sea. It seems like this is what should be happening all the time, right? It's not easy to do ... So I think this is just a good showcase of how hard the people we have in the organization work."
After a few delays due to the weather, the mission was successfully completed.
