served most of her career with the RCN and later Canadian Forces' Atlantic Fleet. During her service with Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT), she was primarily used as a training ship. After the discovery of cracks in the boilers of , all the Annapolis-class destroyers were temporarily taken out of service for an inspection in 1981. However, no cracks were discovered in Nipigon. In 1982, Nipigon was tasked with searching for and recovering any survivors from Ocean Ranger, a semi-submersible oil platform that had sunk in heavy seas. Nipigons DELEX refit was performed by Davie Shipbuilding at Lauzon, taking place from 27 June 1983 to 22 August 1984 and cost $16 million. On 28 April 1985, the warship shelled and sank the fishing trawler Lady Marjorie after it had been abandoned by its crew and became a hazard to navigation. Initially the decision was questioned, but Nipigon was later cleared by a Canadian Coast Guard report. In June 1985, Nipigon, while participating in naval exercises, suffered structural damage after a stress crack sheared 215 rivets in the vessel's superstructure. The problem was not resolved until 1986. On 27 February 1987, her CH-124 helicopter rescued crewmen from the tug Gulf Gale which had caught fire off Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. The ship became the second to have a mixed-gender crew in the Canadian Forces in September 1987. Nipigon underwent another refit, this time at Port Weller, Ontario beginning on 30 August 1988 and lasting to 16 February 1990. In August 1991, the destroyer was deployed to STANAVFORLANT, the standing NATO fleet. In May 1993, Nipigon took part in commemorative events remembering the Battle of the Atlantic in Liverpool and off the Welsh coast. In 1995, Nipigon was deployed into the Atlantic as a guard ship during the Turbot War. In June 1995, the destroyer intercepted the Spanish fishing vessel Patricia Nores, and boarded her just outside Canada's exclusive economic zone. Eleven tonnes of unrecorded turbot catch was found aboard Patricia Nores in a secret compartment. She was decommissioned from the Canadian Forces on 2 July 1998 and sold for use as an artificial reef. She was sunk in the St. Lawrence River north-east of Rimouski, Quebec on 22 July 2003. References Notes Citations Sources External links HMCS Nipigon Artificial Reef, Rimouski Quebec Canada Nipigon on Scubapedia Annapolis-class destroyers Cold War destroyers of Canada 1961 ships Wreck diving sites