The Canadian Trick That Turned 14 Luxury Yachts Into U Boat Hunters

In 1940 Canada's navy turned 14 American luxury yachts into armed U-boat hunters, and it had to get around United States neutrality law to do it. Selling a yacht to a country at war could cost an American a $10,000 fine and three years in prison. So the Royal Canadian Navy did not buy them. Members of Canadian yacht clubs did. This is how it worked. The navy requisitioned yachts that belonged to Canadian yachtsmen. Men like Ralph Bell of Halifax and George Herrick Duggan of Montreal then went south and bought replacements: yachts the navy had already picked, paid for with money the government had quietly arranged. When each new yacht reached Canada, the navy took that one too and handed the old one back. By autumn the millionaires' yachts were painted grey, carried a gun on the bow and depth charges on the stern, and had new names: Otter, Raccoon, Husky, Moose, Vison, Lynx. They escorted convoys off Halifax and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence while the corvettes were still being built. HMCS Otter burned and sank off the Sambro lightship in March 1941. HMCS Raccoon vanished with all 37 men behind convoy QS-33 on the night of 6-7 September 1942, torpedoed by U-165. HMCS Vison fought U-106 in the Cabot Strait. None of the fourteen ever sank a U-boat, and the film says so. What they did was hold the line for two years and then train the men who went on to the corvettes and frigates. One of them is still afloat. Did someone in your family serve in an armed yacht or on the St. Lawrence convoys? Leave his name and his ship in the comments. CHAPTERS 0:00 Three years in prison for selling one 0:21 The buyers 3:18 Barely a navy 5:17 The yachts reach Halifax 6:30 Guns, depth charges, new names 8:02 Who sails them 9:31 The loss of HMCS Otter 11:37 U-boats in the St. Lawrence 12:59 Convoy QS-33 and HMCS Raccoon 15:19 Vison against U-106 16:52 What the yachts never did 18:18 The school at Digby 19:05 What became of them 20:26 The one still afloat Sources: 1. Marc Milner, "Fattening The Fleet: Navy, Part 21", Legion Magazine, 2007 - https://legionmagazine.com/fattening-... 2. Official history of HMCS Husky, CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum - https://navalandmilitarymuseum.org/ar... 3. Fraser McKee, The Armed Yachts of Canada (Boston Mills Press, 1983) 4. Convoy QS-33 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_... 5. Stephen Kimber, "Rescue at sea: the sinking of the Otter, 1941" - https://stephenkimber.com/the-sinking...