THE HMCS SACKVILLE “DENT”
by Charles O’Dale CD

My military career consisted of 6 years in the regular force RCN (1964-1970), and another 20(ish) years in the Canadian Naval Reserves while I was employed at Nortel. In the summer of 1987 I was assigned as Cox’n of one of our Canadian “R-class vessels”. I was to get the crew qualified to pass their “Sea Readiness Inspection” (SRI). All training was successful but during our early morning journey to the SRI we had an “incident”.

My reserve “R-class” ship was along-side a jetty positioned 90° to the Sackville (pointing directly at her). As Cox’n I was responsible for evolutions and safety on the upper deck and the chief ERA was responsible for engine functioning. After securing for sea and the pipe “hands to stations for leaving harbour, special sea duty men and cable party close up, assume damage control condition YANKEE”, we slipped and secured all lines proceeding slow ahead with all systems functioning (INCLUDING THE ENGINE!!). At that point we had a main engine failure! We had way on but not enough for helm efficiency and we were HEADED DIRECTLY AT THE CORVETTE’S BOW. With my station on the upper deck I grabbed an inflated fender and placed it over our bow. Did it ever go “BANG” at the collision! Without the fender I’m sure the corvette would have had a small hole punched through her side! Hence the “Chuck ” dent.

The engine “problem” was eventually solved and we proceeded to and passed our SRI.
With my deployment complete, I departed the ship and headed home to Ottawa. Later that evening I was dining on lobster in Lunenburg and the next Monday I was back in my lab at Nortel.