HMS Unseen (S41): Reborn as HMCS Victoria

Birkenhead-Built

HMS Unseen was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, her keel laid down on 12 August 1987, launched on 14 November 1989 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 20 July 1991, an Upholder-class diesel-electric submarine designed as a quiet and capable successor to the ageing Oberon class.

A Short Royal Navy Career

Unseen's Royal Navy service proved brief, a casualty of the sweeping post-Cold War defence reviews that judged the entire Upholder class surplus to requirements almost as soon as it had entered service. She was decommissioned on 6 April 1994 and placed in reserve that June, less than three years after her commissioning.

Sold to Canada

As Britain moved to end its diesel-electric submarine operations entirely, the government offered Unseen and her three sister boats to Canada in 1993, an offer accepted in 1998 under a lease arrangement worth US$427 million, plus a further US$98 million to bring the boats up to Canadian standards.

Unseen was formally handed over to the Canadian Navy on 6 October 2000, departing for Canada three days later and arriving on 23 October.

A New Name, A Long Second Career

She was commissioned into Maritime Command as HMCS Victoria at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 2 December 2000, marking her formal transition from the Royal Navy to the Royal Canadian Navy.

A Canadianization refit at Halifax, originally expected to take six months, ran until 2003, after which she made the coastal transfer to her new home port of Esquimalt, sailing on 29 June and arriving on 24 August, a name and identity under which she has continued to serve for a quarter of a century since, considerably longer than her original career under the White Ensign ever managed.