| History | |
|---|---|
| Name |
|
| Owner |
|
| Port of registry |  United Kingdom (1933–1939) |
| Builder | John I. Thornycroft & Company, Woolston, Southampton, UK |
| Yard number | 1115 |
| Launched | 11 May 1933 |
| Completed | August 1933 |
| In service | 1933 |
| Out of service | 1939 |
| Fate | Acquired byRoyal Canadian Navy |
 Canada | |
| Name | Sans Peur |
| Acquired | 1939 |
| Commissioned | 3 March 1940 |
| Decommissioned | 31 January 1947 |
| Fate | Sold for commercial service 1947 |
| Name |
|
| Port of registry |  Panama |
| In service | 1947 |
| General characteristics in naval service | |
| Type | Armed yacht |
| Displacement | 856 long tons (870 t) |
| Length | 210 ft (64.0 m) |
| Beam | 30 ft (9.1 m) |
| Draught | 13 ft (4.0 m) |
| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 13knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) |
| Complement | 48 |
| Sensors & processing systems | Type 123asdic |
| Armament |
|
HMCSSans Peur was anarmed yacht that served with theRoyal Canadian Navy (RCN) duringWorld War II on both coasts. The vessel was constructed as ayacht in 1933 for Ernest G. Stanley at theJohn I. Thornycroft & Company yard inWoolston, Southampton, United Kingdom and initially namedTrenora. It was sold in the 1930s toGeorge Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland who renamed itSans Peur. The yacht was taken over by the RCN in 1939 and used foranti-submarine patrols andtraining duties on theBritish Columbia Coast. In 1944,Sans Peur was brought east toNova Scotia as a training ship.
The RCN intended to keepSans Peur in the postwar era, but budget cuts forced the service to dispose of the ship in 1947.Sans Peur was first acquired by a company fromMontreal before being resold to a Panamanian company in 1948, which renamed the vesselTrenora. The vessel was reconverted to a yacht atGibraltar and acquired by an Italian family in the shipping trade. In 1972,Trenora was sold again to Japanese buyers who renamed the vesselSans Peur. In 1975, the vessel was used asVIP accommodations during an event atOkinawa. The vessel's fate is unknown.
Sans Peur was designed as ayacht to a modified structure. The ship was planned with a low-strengthmain deck and uppersuperstructure carried on stanchions. This made the upper level boat deck the new strength deck. This diversion from traditional yacht structure led to disagreements withLloyd's Register assessors for insurance purposes. The changes were only deemed acceptable after the intervention of the chief surveyor who granted a dispensation to the existing rules. The yacht was powered by twinPolar Atlasdiesel engines with a cruising speed of12+1⁄2knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph) for 7,000nautical miles (13,000 km; 8,100 mi) with a top speed of 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph), with twopropeller shafts.[1][2] The yacht was 210 ft (64.0 m) long with abeam of 30 ft (9.1 m) and adraught of 13 ft (4.0 m).[3]Trenora was measured at 856 gross register tons (GRT).[2]
The yacht was ordered for construction fromJohn I. Thornycroft & Company at their yard inWoolston, Southampton, United Kingdom by Dr. Ernest G. Stanley, a nephew ofRudyard Kipling.[2][1] The vessel'syard number was 1115 and the ship waslaunched on 11 May 1933.[2] Completed in August 1933, the vessel was namedTrenora by Stanley and was acquired by him to help support the lagging shipbuilding industry during theGreat Depression.George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland purchasedTrenora in the 1930s and renamed the vesselSans Peur after the motto ofClan Sutherland. The Duke of Sutherland usedSans Peur to visit his business holdings inBritish Columbia while on a world cruise with a friend. While cruising offCalifornia in 1939,Sans Peur grounded on a sandbank.[1] The ship hadgrounded off Espiritu Santo Island in theGulf of California. The vessel's captain had managed to refloatSans Peur and anchor it, but a hole had been opened in the bottom and the ship lay partly flooded. With the aid of the tugboatRetriever, the vessel was made sound and the ship resumed its journey.[4]Sans Peur and the Duke of Sutherland was off the coast of British Columbia whenWorld War II broke out. The duke turned his ship over to theBritish Admiralty atVancouver in September 1939 and departed by train for eastern Canada to return to the UK.[1]
To augment the local sea defences ofEast Coast ports, theRoyal Canadian Navy (RCN) sought large, steel-hulled yachts to requisition.Sans Peur had been turned over to the Admiralty at the outset of the war by the Duke of Sutherland and formally requisitioned by the Admiralty in October. On 7 October, the British Admiralty offeredSans Peur to the Royal Canadian Navy. The offer was accepted and the yacht was taken into RCN on acharter from the BritishMinistry of War Transport, initially costing the Government of Canada 569 pounds, 10 shillings per month.[5]
Conversion to anarmed yacht involved removing most of the luxurious finery and installing naval hardware. AsSans Peur was the first to be converted to an armed yacht in Canadian service, the vessel was the first to be given Type 123asdic. The yacht was strengthened both fore and aft for heavier guns and was given an additional40 mm anti-aircraft gun. The forward gun was a 4-inch (102 mm) model that had been taken from a former Canadiandestroyer.[6][7] The rear gun was a12-pounder gun.[3] The ship was also given 25depth charges. In 1941, the yacht was equipped withradar. Despite being one of the more capable armed yachts,Sans Peur did have drawbacks. Fuel tanks 3, 6 and 7 had to remain filled with fuel and if fuel was drawn from these tanks, water was pumped in to take its place. At first this caused issues as every time this happened the tanks had to be cleaned before new fuel could be put in. Later a method was developed where fuel was taken from the top of the tanks as water was pumped in through the bottom. Conversion to an armed yacht took until the end of 1939.[6][7]
Sans Peur was the first yachtcommissioned on 3 March 1940.[8][a]Sans Peur sailed on its first patrol on 11 March. Originally intended for local defence, the lack of capable Canadian ships led the armed yachts to be assigned to seaward patrol missions. The yacht was used to patrol along the British Columbia coast along with use as a gunnery andanti-aircraft gunnery training ship. After 1943, the yacht was also used as a radar training ship. After German merchant ships were captured in the Pacific by Canadian and British warships,Sans Peur was used to transport the Germanprisoners of war from the warships to British Columbia.[9][10]
After the entry of Japan into the war, the threat to the west coast increased. On 7 June 1942, theJapanese submarine I-26 torpedoed and sankUSAT Coastal Trader offCape Flattery. The United States requested RCN aid andSans Peur and the corvetteEdmundston were dispatched. The two ships began searching for survivors and with the assistance of aRoyal Canadian Air Force aircraft,Edmundston recovered the survivors. Later that month, on 20 June,I-26 shelled a lighthouse atEstevan Point on the British Columbia coast,Sans Peur was dispatched with the corvetteTimmins to track and destroy the submarine. The Japanese submarine was not found as it had retreated.[9][11]
As more capable vessels began pouring out of shipyards, the RCN began to rely less onSans Peur and the other armed yachts for operational patrols.[12] After November 1942,Sans Peur was used solely as a training vessel on the west coast.[13] In April 1943,Sans Peur was purchased outright by Canada for $305,191.[14] The yacht then underwent an extensive refit and in late 1943, after the threat from Japan had subsided on the west coast, the RCN decided to sendSans Peur east. Accompanied byNew Glasgow, the two ships departedEsquimalt on 24 January 1944 and arrived atHalifax, Nova Scotia on 6 February via thePanama Canal. After arrival,Sans Peur was then sent to joinHMCS Cornwallis, the naval training facility in theAnnapolis Basin, where it joined seven other armed yachts.[13][14] There the yacht took part in anti-submarine training withRoyal Navy submarines.[13]Sans Peur operated with the submarinesHMS L23,Seawolf,Unseen andUpright. Additionally, the armed yachts stationed atCornwallis would escort the ferryPrincess Helen on the run betweenSaint John, New Brunswick andDigby, Nova Scotia after the sinking ofCaribou.[15]
With the arrival of twoCastle-classcorvettes atCornwallis to take over training duties in January 1946 following the end of the war,Sans Peur was sent to Halifax as a training ship andtender to the naval reserve divisionHMCS Scotian in February.[13][16] The ship was used for bathythermographic testing inSt. Margaret's Bay and training with the submarineHMS Token. During this period, the submarineL23 collided withSans Peur, punching a hole in the side of the ship at Reed's Point, New Brunswick. As the Royal Canadian Navy's budget shrank in the postwar eraSans Peur was deemed surplus. The vessel waspaid off the following year on 31 January 1947 and put up for sale.[17]
Sans Peur was purchased by Maple Leaf Steamships ofMontreal on 6 June 1947 but in 1948, was sold again.Registered under a Panamanian flag by the owners, Equipment & Supply Company from New York City, the ship reverted to its original nameTrenora. The vessel sailed for theMediterranean Sea, stopping inGibraltar whereTrenora was reconverted to a yacht by its original builders.Trenora was then acquired by the Ravano family, a family with shipping interests fromGenoa.Trenora was used by the family as their personal yacht but also put up for charter with theDuke andDuchess of Windsor,Henry Ford and CountMarzotto all spending time aboard. In 1972, the yacht was put up for sale by the Ravano family and was acquired by Japanese buyers. They renamed the vesselSans Peur and the yacht made its way out to Japan via the Panama Canal andHonolulu, Hawaii, arriving in May 1973. Shortly after the ship's arrival in Japan, it was sold to Hatsubaichi Kanko ofHiroshima. In mid-1975,Sans Peur was used asVIP accommodations during the Ocean Olympics atOkinawa.[13][18]