HMCS NANAIMO (2nd) (702)
HMCS NANAIMO (2nd)
The History of HMCS NANAIMO (2nd)
HMCS Nanaimo (MM 702) is the third Kingston-class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel and the second Royal Canadian Navy ship named for Nanaimo, British Columbia. She inherited the battle honours Atlantic 1941-44 and Gulf of St. Lawrence 1944 from the Flower-class corvette of the same name.
Laid down at Halifax Shipyards on 11 August 1995 and launched on 17 May 1996, she sailed west from Halifax on 12 November 1996, arriving at Esquimalt on 19 December as the first Kingston-class ship assigned to the Pacific coast. She was commissioned in her namesake city on 10 May 1997. Homeported at CFB Esquimalt for most of her life and crewed largely by naval reservists, she was built for coastal patrol, mine countermeasures, training, fisheries and sovereignty work, support to other government departments, and search and rescue.
West-coast service mixed domestic constabulary work with alliance exercises. She supported the RCMP, Canada Customs, and Fisheries and Oceans, took part in search-and-rescue and environmental-response tasking, and trained junior officers. In 2002 and again in 2014 she participated in RIMPAC. In 2005 she conducted the first hoist exercise between an MCDV and a U.S. Coast Guard Dauphin helicopter.
The Bofors 40mm guns were removed from Canada's Kingston-class coastal defence vessel (MCDV) fleet in 2014, leaving the vessels relying on two 12.7mm (0.50 caliber) Browning M2 heavy machine guns for self-defense. Nanaimo's 40 mm gun eventually went to the Vancouver Island Military Museum, Nanaimo, B.C., unveiled during a ceremony on July 1, 2017.
She became a regular on Operation CARIBBE in the eastern Pacific. Deployments with sisters Whitehorse and Edmonton produced multiple drug interdictions, including floating packets recovered in 2015 and boardings that seized hundreds of kilograms of cocaine in 2017. A 2020 patrol with Whitehorse was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the Navy was preparing to pay off her class, they consolidated the remaining Kingston-class ships on the East Coast, Nanaimo left Esquimalt on 9 October 2025, transited the Panama Canal, and arrived at Halifax on 26 November 2025.
She is one of the few remaining of her class still in service, and is scheduled to be paid off in 2028.
HMCS NANAIMO (2nd) Statistical Data
- Pendant: 702
- Type: Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel
- Class: Kingston
- Displacement: 970 tonnes
- Length: 55.31 m / 181.5 ft
- Width: 11.3 m / 37 ft
- Draught: 3.4 m / 11 ft
- Speed: 15 kts
- Compliment: 31-36 Officers and Crew
- Arms: 1 - 40mm Bofors (removed in 2014), 2 - 12.7 mm (.50 cal) machine gun
- Builder: Halifax Shipyards Ltd., Halifax, NS
- Keel Laid: 11-Aug-95
- Date Launched: 17-May-96
- Date Commissioned: 10-May-97
- Paid off:
More Images
HMCS Nanaimo alongside in Victoria Harbour for Canada Day celebrations, July 1, 2009. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons User: Saberwyn)
HMCS Nanaimo departs Halifax, Nova Scotia for duties with Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group One, July 16, 2026. Photo: Master Corporal Bennett, Formation Imaging Services.