CCGS Martha L. Black is the lead ship of her class of light icebreakers of the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship was built in 1986 in Vancouver, British Columbia by Versatile Pacific Shipyards Limited as part of the CG Program Vessels. The vessel was mainly designed as a high-endurance, multi-tasked boat. Most of her duties are along the St. Lawrence River and St. Lawrence Seaway as she is able to handle the ice thickness there.

Design and description

Martha L. Black, the lead ship of the Martha L. Black-class icebreaker of icebreakers, displaces 4662 LT fully loaded with a and a. The ship is 83.0 m long overall with a beam of 16.2 m and a draught of 5.8 m. The vessel is powered by two fixed-pitch propellers and bow thrusters powered by three Alco 251F diesel-electric engines creating 8,847 hp, and three Canadian GE generators producing 6 megawatts of AC power driving two Canadian GE motors creating 7040 hp. The ship is also equipped with one Caterpillar C32 auxiliary generator and one Caterpillar 3306 emergency generator. This gives the ship a maximum speed of 15.1 kn. Capable of carrying 1086 LT of diesel fuel, Martha L. Black has a maximum range of 14500 nmi at a cruising speed of 14 kn and can stay at sea for up to 120 days. The ship is certified as Arctic Class 2. The icebreaker is equipped with one Racal Decca Bridgemaster navigational radar operating on the I band. Martha L. Black has a crane capable of lifting 20 LT. The ship carries two rigid-hulled inflatable boats and a self-propelled barge. Martha L. Black is equipped with a 195 m2 flight deck and a 103 m2 hangar which originally housed light helicopters of the MBB Bo 105 or Bell 206L types, but in the 2010s, the Bell 429 GlobalRanger and Bell 412EPI were acquired by the Canadian Coast Guard to replace the older helicopters. The ship can carry 22.8 m3 of aviation fuel for the helicopters. The ship has a complement of 25, with 10 officers and 15 crew. Martha L. Black has 26 additional berths.

Service history

Constructed by Versatile Pacific Shipyards Limited at their yard in North Vancouver, British Columbia with the yard number 108, the vessel was launched on 6 September 1985. The ship entered service on 30 April 1986. The ship was named for Martha L. Black, a woman from Chicago, Illinois who immigrated to Canada and was a pioneering settler of Yukon. She became the second woman to be elected a Member of Parliament in Canada in 1935. The ship is registered in Ottawa, Ontario, and homeported at Quebec City. The vessel was initially assigned to the Western Region, but swapped places with sister ship CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The ship's primary duty is a buoy tender and navigational aids support in the Saint Lawrence River and Seaway and Saguenay River. Martha L. Black also provides icebreaking services to the same areas. In 2012, the ship transported scientists on a research mission to the Labrador Sea. In January 2014, Martha L. Black was one of two icebreakers called into the Saint Lawrence River to aid two passenger ferries which were prevented from crossing the river by ice. The ferries, which connect the Quebec communities of Sorel-Tracy and Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola, had been docked after ice conditions had become severe enough that the large icebreaker CCGS Amundsen needed reinforcement. In 2016, Martha L. Black suffered damage to her three engines and remained out of service for three months, docked at Cacouna, Quebec.

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