HMCS Preserver (AOR 510)

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Career

Ordered:	early 1960s
Laid down:	October 17, 1967
Launched:	May 29, 1969
Commissioned:	August 7, 1970^[1]
Fate:	in active service
General characteristics
Displacement:	24,550 tonnes
Length:	172 metres (563 feet)
Beam:	23 metres (76 feet)
Draught:	10 metres (33 feet)
Propulsion:	Two Babcock and Wilcox boilers; One General Electric steam turbine engine
Speed:	20 knots
Complement:	290 officers and crew (men and women) including air detachment when embarked
Armament:	2 x 20 mm Close-in weapon system (CIWS) 6 x heavy (.50 calibre) machine guns^[2]
Aircraft:	3 - CH124 Sea King helicopters^[2]
Motto:	Le Coeur de la Flotte ("The Heart of the Fleet")

HMCS Preserver is a Canadian Protecteur-class Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment (replenishment oiler) ship commissioned in 1970.

Built by the Saint John Shipbuilding, Saint John, New Brunswick, it underwent a major refit in 2005, after the ship was plagued by electrical problems.

It is the second ship to bear the name. The first HMCS Preserver was a base supply ship. Commissioned July 11, 1942, the first HMCS Preserver served World War II as a Fairmile motor launch base supply ship off under the East Coast's 'Newfoundland Force'. It was paid off November 6, 1945.

The ship has served Canada's fleet in domestic and international exercises in the 1980s and 1990s. It is currently serving in the Canadian Navy's Atlantic Fleet out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The ship will continue to operate until the Joint Support Ship Project has been completed.