by Chris Meyers Almey
Northern News Services

NNSL (NOV 06/96) - It is an ancient seafaring custom that a coin be placed under the mast of a ship when her keel is laid.

So it is most fitting that when the keel for HMCS Yellowknife is laid in Halifax tomorrow, it is a 1913 $5 Canadian gold coin from this city, a city built on mining gold, that will be used in the ceremony.

The coin belongs to Shirley McGrath, wife of Mayor David Lovell.

The Halifax-born McGrath got the coin from her father many years ago, so she was going to keep the coin for his infant grandson Russell Lovell.

"I'm finding this whole thing really exciting," McGrath says. "When I first heard about the ship, shivers went up and down my spine."

"Most of Yellowknife doesn't know about this because it hasn't been publicized," she says.

"It's our ship, so to speak."

The ship is one of 12 maritime coastal defence vessels being built for the Canadian navy. HMCS Yellowknife will be 55.3 metres long and 11.3 metres in breadth.

She won't be particularly fast at 15 knots, but then she's not designed for hunting submarines. Instead, the Yellowknife will be used for surveillance and patrol of Canada's west coast.

With a crew of mostly reserve sailors, the Yellowknife will perform many roles and have the ability to hunt mines.

The ship will be armed with a 40-mm Bofors gun and two .50-calibre machine guns and carry a crew of 36.

HMCS Yellowknife would be launched perhaps next May and be commissioned later in the year in Esquimault, B.C.

"I know they want to try bring her through the Northwest Passage'" McGrath says, adding "That would be really exciting. It would be quite the party."

And, HMCS Yellowknife might even make it to her namesake, McGrath says, as officers are trying to see if it's feasible.

But the warship would have to be unloaded to the point where she would draw 1.5 metres of water, to clear rapids on the Mackenzie River.

With fuel and everything else on board, the Yellowknife will have a draught of 3.4 metres.

"My father is going to be the semi-official ambassador for Yellowknife at the keel laying, as the mayor sent him," McGrath says.

Major Ed McGrath, of New Brunswick, will have on hand the city's gold knife pins, books and the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce $2 coins to present on the occasion.

The retired army major got the $5 gold coin as a boy while selling newspapers at an air force mess hall in Nova Scotia during the Second World War.

"It's really been exciting for my father. He doesn't often call me ... but he called me three times in one day about this, all in prime time," says Shirley McGrath.