Sinking a destroyer

Operation Trident Fury: Canadian and United States Navy forces converge for live fire exercise to sink the HMCS Huron.

Welcome to Operation Trident Fury – Canadian and United States Navy forces converge for live fire exercise in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The goal: sink the HMCS Huron, a Tribal-class destroyer. Parallax Film Productions profiles the ship’s ultimate engineering, this high-octane operation, and the fierce competition to deliver the ship’s fatal blow.

CF-18 Hornets. The HMCS Algonquin. HMC Ships Saskatoon, Ottawa and Regina. United States Ships Shoup, Ingraham and Curts. This documentary follows these vessels and their crews in an unprecedented operation to defy naval military engineering. In the past retired warships were generally sold for scrap or sunk as artificial reefs. This time the Navy decides to use the Huron for ultra-sensitive target practice in this large-scale exercise. The goal: provide invaluable operational training for sailors and pilots – the most realistic training possible in peacetime – in the West Coast Firing Area, about 100 km off the coast of Vancouver Island, in 2,000 metres of water.

This show also follows crews as they prep the HMCS Huron for this live fire operation, which proves to be a long and intricate process. Equipment, weapons and other military systems are extracted. Chemical storage containers, flotation devices, radiation devices, all mercury gauges and heat sensors, refrigerant containers, fuel tanks and fuel lines are all purged. Loose paint and flaking rust was also removed to ensure the ship doesn’t harm the ocean environment.