HMCS SHEARWATER

OWN A PIECE OF CANADIAN HISTORY

Get on board and order your print of Canada’s first Navy Ship, HMCS SHEARWATER (circa 1910).

This art comes completely framed with a piece of the original 100-year-old mast.

CANADIAN NAVY – 100TH ANIVERSARY

I call international artist Ronald Suchiu (pronounced Sue-Chew) the Forrest Gump of the art industry. He always seems to be there at the right time and place.

One of Suchiu’s collectors who is involved with HMCS HUNTER in Windsor, Ontario, Canada contacted Ron and told him of a wonderful artifact that he had in his possession. It is a piece of the aft mast from Canada’s first navy ship the HMCS SHEARWATER. Long story short, Ron had been looking for something to do to honor 2010 the year of the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy. This is so exciting for Suchiu fans, history buffs, or nautical collectors. The HMCS SHEARWATER was Canada’s first naval ship! What are the chances of you owning a piece of Canada’s first naval ship?

HISTORY OF HMCS SHEARWATER

HMCS SHEARWATER was a sloop originally commissioned HMS SHEARWATER (1900) for the Royal Navy. She was built at HM Dockyard Sheerness, England, and was launched on February 10th, 1900. By the 1910’s she had become one of the last two remaining warships in the RN’s Pacific Squadron based at Esquimalt, British Columbia. The RN’s Pacific Squadron was phased out in 1914 with the start of World War I. The sloop HMS SHEARWATER was transferred by the British Admiralty to the Royal Canadian Navy. They were re-commissioned on 8th September 1914; at this time, HMS SHEARWATER was re-commissioned as HMCS SHEARWATER. (HMS, His Majesty’s Ship to HMCS, His Majesty’s Canadian Ship) SHEARWATER’s two 4-inch guns were put ashore to defend Seymour Narrows when the first world war broke out, and her crew was sent to Halifax to man HMCS NIOBE. The Admiralty agreed to lend SHEARWATER to the RCN, and on the 8th of September 1914, she was commissioned as a tender to the newly acquired submarines CC1 and CC2. In the summer of 1917, she sailed with her charges via the Panama Canal to Halifax.

She was paid off on 13th June 1919 and in 1924 sold into mercantile hands and renamed VEDAS. Her register was closed in 1937. This now merchant ship had many civilian duties and somehow ended up in the Detroit River some say anchored offshore during the rum-running days by the infamous rum runner

Harry Low and used in the selling of illegal whiskey. The very same Harry Low who built the house that Prime Minister Paul Martin was raised in.

The ship was eventually sold for scrap but the dealer John Kovinsky had the 114 foot aft mast made of one single fir tree erected as a monument in loving memory of his late wife. It was placed in Mic Mac Park, in 1937 and then relocated to Assumption Park, both in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Years past and the aging wooden mast wrought from its stone base and fell and broke. The city’s parks department carried it off and chopped up the pieces. That’s when this wonderful collector of Suchiu Art, and obviously a lover of history, realized what had happened and asked to acquire and save the chopped up pieces. Thus, is the saga of the SHEARWATER.

So now you can be part of the final chapter of this intriguing saga and personally own a real piece of Canada’s history!

Only 100 s/n prints will be made in honor of the Royal Canadian Navy’s 100 years of service. The prints will all come beautifully framed and include a section of the mast and a descriptive plaque.