Rig for sail!
80 years ago today, the Bangor-class minesweeper HMCS Lockeport (J100), the fans for her cranky high-speed steam reciprocating engines having quit the game during a gale while on the way to Baltimore for a much-needed refit, saw her crew piece together a mixture of hammocks and sheets, then, lashing them to the 180-foot sweeper’s masts as a primitive foresail and a mizzen made from the lifeboat’s emergency sail, poked around at speeds as fast as three knots for some 60 miles (some sources say as much as 190 miles, although this is likely unchecked exaggeration) until she was taken under tow and brought into harbor.
Newspaper clippings from the Vancouver Sun 03 May 1944 on Lockeport’s use of a sail at sea (via For Posterity’s Sake)
One of a half-dozen Bangors built by North Van Ship Repairs Ltd in Vancouver for the Royal Navy and then transferred to the Canadians on completion, Lockeport was commissioned on 27 May 1942, She served with the Esquimalt Force on the West Coast and then transferred to the Atlantic the next year, serving in turn with the Western Local Escort Force, Halifax Force, and Newfoundland Force until her engines forced her to Baltimore.
Returning to Halifax in April 1944, Lockeport spent the rest of the year with the Sydney Force and was frequently an escort to the Port-aux-Basques/Sydney ferry, capping her service with a trip to England in May-June 1945 to help clear mines.
She was paid off in July 1945 and sold for scrap three years later, earning a single battle honor (Gulf of St. Lawrence 1944).