New York City Fleet Week 2009 had representatives from both the U.S. military and the Canadian Navy. The ships we visited in Staten Island were the USS Vella Gulf and the Canadian Navy’s HMCS Athabaskan.
The Vella Gulf is famous because of its involvement with pirates. On February 2009, the Vella Gulf responded to a distress call from the tanker Polaris in the Gulf of Aden. The Polaris reported that pirates in a single skiff were attempting to board the tanker with ladders, though the Polaris crew was able to thwart their efforts. Upon arriving in the area, the Vella Gulf intercepted a skiff with 7 men aboard. One of the 7 Somali men is now on trail in downtown Manhattan.
We have a fondness for the Canucks and we were so pleased to see their patrol boats. The HMCS Athabaskan is not only a patrol boat but also a destroyer, protecting Canada’s sovereignty in the Atlantic Ocean and enforcing Canadian laws in its territorial sea and Exclusive Economic Zone. She has also been deployed on missions throughout the Atlantic and to the Indian Ocean; specifically, the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea after Iraq occupied Kuwait, and most recently in Haiti. When we were there, the HMCS Athabaskan was sailing out of the Stapleton Harbor back to where else? Answer: Au Canada!
Photo credits:
USS Vella Gulf
HMCS Athabaskan
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