The

Canadian Coast Guard The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG; ) is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues in Canadian waters, such as navigation aids and i ...

(CCG) maintains a fleet of Cape-class motor lifeboats based on a motor lifeboat

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

used by the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

. In September 2009 the CCG announced plans to add five new lifeboats, bringing the total number of Cape-class lifeboats to 36. The vessels are staffed by a crew of four, of which at least one is a rescue specialist. In spite of its name, the CCGS ''Cape Roger'' is a larger patrol vessel, not a Cape-class lifeboat. The CCG also maintains some larger motor lifeboats based on

Arun-class lifeboat The Arun-class lifeboat is a fast all-weather Lifeboat (rescue), lifeboat designed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) for service at its stations around the coasts of the United Kingdom and Ireland. They were operated by the RNLI ...

s designed in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. In 2021 a contract was awarded to Ocean Pacific Marine to upgrade the class over a 7 year period.

Design

Cape-class motor lifeboats have displacements of 33.79 GT, total lengths of and beams of . Constructed from marine-grade

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

, ships have

draughts Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; Commonwealth English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve forward movements of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. ...

of . They contain two Caterpillar 3196

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...

s providing a combined . They have two counter-rotating, four-blade propellers. Each ship's

complement Complement may refer to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class collections into complementary sets * Complementary color, in the visu ...

is four crew members and 5 passengers. The lifeboats have a maximum speed of and a cruising speed of . Cape-class lifeboats have fuel capacities of and an designed operational range of when cruising. They are capable of operating in sustained wind speeds of and wave heights of . They can tow ships with displacements of up to and can withstand winds and -high breaking waves. These ships must meet stringent stability requirements. Communication options include

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

152 HF-SSB and

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

Spectra 9000 VHF50W radios, and a Raytheon RAY 430 loudhailer system. The lifeboats also support the Simrad TD-L1550 VHF-FM

radio direction finder Direction finding (DF), radio direction finding (RDF), or radiogoniometry is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertent source, a natural ...

. Raytheon provides a number of other electronic systems for the lifeboats, including the RAYCHART 620, the ST 30 heading indicator and ST 50 depth indicator, the NAV 398

global positioning system The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide ge ...

, a RAYPILOT 650

autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of a vehicle without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allow ...

system, and either the R41X AN or SPS-69 radar systems

Class list and distribution

Design

Class list and distribution

References

External links