For Sale: 4 Submarines, Not Shipshape

Four mothballed submarines, acquired from the British navy nearly 40 years ago, are being put up for sale, the Canadian defence department has announced. "We are anxious to get rid of them," Pat MacDonald, the department's disposal co-ordinator, told the Halifax Chronicle Herald. "We have been for some time." The Oberon-class submarines are presently docked on the Dartmouth, N.S., waterfront. HMCS Onondaga, HMCS Ojibwa, HMCS Okanagan and the Olympus were purchased between 1965 and 1968. (The Olympus was not commissioned, but used instead as a training vessel.) HMCS Onondaga was the last of the subs to be taken out of service in 2000. MacDonald estimated they may be able to get $50,000 to $60,000 each as scrap metal. He said it would take a lot of resources to make the vessels seaworthy. Very little maintenance has been done on the submarines since they were taken out of service. The navy would have liked to use the subs as museums but they've deteriorated too much even for that.HMCS Okanagan, an Oberon-class submarine.