CCGS Martha L. Black country of registry Canada
Service history
Constructed by Versatile Pacific Shipyards Limited at their yard in North Vancouver, British Columbia with the yard number 108, the vessel was launched on 6 September 1985. The ship entered service on 30 April 1986. The ship was named for Martha L. Black, a woman from Chicago, Illinois who immigrated to Canada and was a pioneering settler of Yukon. She became the second woman to be elected a Member of Parliament in Canada in 1935. The ship is registered in Ottawa, Ontario, and homeported at Quebec City. The vessel was initially assigned to the Western Region, but swapped places with sister ship CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier.The ship's primary duty is a buoy tender and navigational aids support in the Saint Lawrence River and Seaway and Saguenay River. Martha L. Black also provides icebreaking services to the same areas. In 2012, the ship transported scientists on a research mission to the Labrador Sea. In January 2014, Martha L. Black was one of two icebreakers called into the Saint Lawrence River to aid two passenger ferries which were prevented from crossing the river by ice. The ferries, which connect the Quebec communities of Sorel-Tracy and Saint-Ignace-de-Loyola, had been docked after ice conditions had become severe enough that the large icebreaker CCGS Amundsen needed reinforcement.In 2016, Martha L. Black suffered damage to her three engines and remained out of service for three months, docked at Cacouna, Quebec.
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