St. Roch (ship)

St. Roch wintering in the Beaufort Sea, 1948.
History
Canada
Name:	St. Roch
Builder:	Burrard Dry Dock Shipyards
Launched:	7 May 1928
Fate:	Designated a National Historic Site of Canada at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, 1962
General characteristics
Type:	Auxiliary Police Schooner
Displacement:	323 long tons (328 t)
Length:	104 ft 3 in (31.78 m)
Beam:	24 ft 9 in (7.54 m)
Draft:	12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Depth of hold:	11 ft (3.4 m)
Propulsion:	Sails 150 hp (112 kW) diesel engine
National Historic Site of Canada
Official name	St. Roch National Historic Site of Canada
Designated	1962

RCMPV St. Roch is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner, the first ship to completely circumnavigate North America, and the second sailing vessel to complete a voyage through the Northwest Passage. She was the first ship to complete the Northwest Passage in the direction west to east (Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean), going the same route that Amundsen on the sailing vessel Gjøa went east to west, 38 years earlier.

The ship was most often captained by Henry Larsen.

Liverpool born Sgt. Fred S. Farrar R.C.M.P. (1901-1954) was a crew member of St. Roch for various voyages including the 1950 voyage that circumnavigated North America, he wrote the book Arctic Assignment: The Story of the St. Roch. which was published posthumously in 1955.

The Stan Rogers song "Take It From Day To Day" is the lament of a crew member on St. Roch.

The ship is located at the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is open to the public for scheduled visits.

St. Roch was made primarily of thick Douglas-fir, with very hard Australian "ironbark" eucalyptus on the outside, and an interior hull reinforced with heavy beams to withstand ice pressure during her Arctic duties. St. Roch was designed by Tom Hallidie and was based on Roald Amundsen's ship Maud.

St. Roch was constructed in 1928 at the Burrard Dry Dock Shipyards in North Vancouver. Between 1929–1939 she supplied and patrolled Canada's Arctic.