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Raven (PCT–56) RCN Training Vessel
Raven (PCT–56) RCN Training Vessel (Murray Polson photo)
Murray Polson, our Victoria Waterfront Correspondent, came across Raven (PCT–56) on the marine ways for maintenance in Victoria Harbour. She is one of eight Orca-class RCN naval training tenders. All eight are based at CFB Esquimalt in British Columbia. They provide a training platform for naval officers and at-sea familiarization for sea cadets. The ships may also be assigned to support surveillance and other operations if required.
Raven (PCT–56) RCN Training Vessel (Murray Polson photo)
She was built at Victoria Shipyards, Victoria, BC and accepted March 15, 2007. She carries a complement of 4 crew plus 16 trainees. She displaces 210 tons (33m x 8.34m x 2m / 108.3’ x 3.74’ x 6.6 ’) She is capable of 20 knots (37 km/h).
Raven (PCT–56) RCN Training Vessel (Murray Polson photo)
These vessels operate year-round in British Columbia coastal waters and frequently visit many local ports throughout the Gulf Islands, Southern Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland, the San Juan Islands, and in Puget Sound and as far as Alaska.
Author’s Postscript: Two of our readers (Commander George Godwin and Captain Glen Power) point out that Raven is not "commissioned" into the fleet and acts as a training platform only. Gerald Pash (Maritime Forces Pacific Headquarters) points out that they are fitted for (but not with) .50 Cal machine guns. Two vessels were fitted out for OPERATION PODIUM, but the weapons were removed after the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Site News: January 14, 2025
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,957 vessel histories (with 16,337 images and 13,935 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3998 images).
My thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of the vessel histories in the vessel database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he continues to contribute to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Thanks to John Spivey who is beginning his 4th year of fact checking all of the entries in the vessel database.