Some trivia for Neah Bay fans:
***********************************

The following article first appeared in the June 1988 edition of the Maritime Museum of BC's "Resolution." It is based on information derived largely from an earlier article by Admiral G.A. Ballard, entitled "British General Battery Ship: Swiftsure and Triumph" in the April, 1948 Mariner's Mirror.

"The Swiftsure Race is of course named after the Swiftsure Bank, which is located southwest of Carmanah Point, just outside the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Bank, in turn, was named after the 19th century Royal Navy battleship, which served as Pacific flagship stationed at Esquimalt.

"H.M.S. Swiftsure, 1870 to 1908, was the seventh ship in the Royal navy to have that name. The earliest H.M.S. Swiftsure , a 360-ton, 41-gun galleon, had been launched at Deptford in 1543. That ship was involved in action against the Spanish Armada in 1588, so "our" Swiftsure has a particularly honourable lineage!

"The Swiftsure was launched in 1870 and commissioned two years later at Plymouth. An "armoured central battery" screw ship, she and her sistership Triumph were designed specifically for service at remote Royal navy stations, such as Esquimalt. She was 280 feet long, had a beam of 55 feet and a draft of 24.5 feet. Her registered tonnage was 6,910.

"During the 1870s, she was stationed in the Mediterranean, and was then refitted to replace Triumph eventually as flagship in the Pacific. In 1882 she arrived on the British Columbia coast to assume duty as flagship.
************************************