New Canadian navy tugboats to enter service following two-year delay

The new naval tugboats were built by Quebec-based Ocean Industries Inc. (Department of National Defence)

The first of four new tugboats built for the Royal Canadian Navy have arrived in British Columbia, two years behind schedule and nearly four years since the first steel was cut for the $102-million project.

The four-vessel fleet will be split between Canada's Pacific and Atlantic fleets, in Esquimalt, B.C., and Halifax, respectively, with the arrival of the two East Coast vessels currently delayed until November 2025 and September 2026.

The contract to build the new naval tugboats was awarded to Quebec's Ocean Industries Inc. in April 2019. The boats are expected to support the navy's newest vessels, including the Arctic and offshore patrol ships and the future River-class destroyers.

The tugboats were initially expected to launch in the fall of 2022, but the navy and Transport Canada required changes to their existing designs, which led to a "longer than expected" design review process, before construction could begin, a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence told CTV News in an emailed statement.

The project delays were further extended by ice conditions on the St. Lawrence River, where the vessel trials were staged, as well as by productivity losses during the COVID-19 pandemic and the bankruptcy of a company supplying winches for the boats.

"It is not uncommon for a first-of-class vessel to encounter supply chain and production challenges that impact delivery schedules," National Defence spokesperson Cheryl Forrest said in the statement.

"Canada is working with the shipbuilder to address these challenges and apply project lessons learned to the delivery of the subsequent vessels."

The newly arrived B.C.-based tugboats, named Naval Large Tug (NLT) Haro and Naval Large Tug (NLT) Barkerville, are now undergoing work at Victoria's Point Hope Maritime Shipyard before their final acceptance by the navy, which is expected later this month.

The vessels are significantly more powerful than the navy's current 1970s-era tugboats and will perform a variety of tasks, including towing, harbour berthing and firefighting duties.

The Haro is named for the Haro Strait, a waterway situated between southern Vancouver Island and the southern Gulf Islands, while the name Barkerville is taken from a Second World War-era tugboat, which capsized and sank off Pender Island in December 1945.

The remaining vessels destined for Halifax, the NLT Canso and NLT Stella Maris, will similarly take their names from the Canso Strait between Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and the former Stella Maris tugboat, which was among the first emergency vessels to respond to the unfolding Halifax Explosion disaster in 1917.