Overview
The Llewellyn class comprised ten Canadian-built wooden coastal minesweepers designed for magnetic-mine countermeasures. Two were built in Quebec for east-coast service and eight in British Columbia for west-coast service.
Developed for Royal Canadian Navy, Llewellyn class belongs to the Mine warfare vessels family and is associated with World War II and Early Cold War. Its documented designations include Coastal minesweeper, Magnetic minesweeper, Patrol vessel, Guard vessel, Training tender, and Survey vessel, while its intended roles include Minesweeping, Coastal mine warfare, Patrol, Guard duty, Training, and Survey.
Development and construction
The RCN ordered the small wooden ships because steel-hulled minesweepers were difficult to protect fully against magnetic mines. The 105-foot-between-perpendiculars hull used a 500-bhp diesel engine, one shaft, and Double-L magnetic sweeping equipment. The eastern pair entered service in 1942; the eight west-coast ships followed in 1944.
The documented program for Llewellyn class lists 10 planned, 10 ordered, 10 laid down, 10 completed, and 0 cancelled, with design work beginning in 1941, construction beginning in 1941, and construction ending in 1944. These figures define the scale and chronology currently supported by the class sources.
Design characteristics and intended role
The surviving classification data associates Llewellyn class with Wooden hull, Single screw, Diesel engine, Double l minesweeping, and Magnetic minesweeping. Read together with the recorded roles of Minesweeping, Coastal mine warfare, Patrol, Guard duty, Training, and Survey, these attributes show the operational problem the design was intended to address without implying specifications that the sources do not establish.
The class record identifies Royal Canadian Navy as the principal design or service authority. Where individual ships changed navy, name, or pennant, those later identities are retained on the ship pages rather than treated as separate vessels.
Service history and class roster
Llewellyn and Lloyd George swept the Halifax approaches. The west-coast ships increasingly served as patrol, examination, and guard craft as the mining threat changed; contemporary Canadian research notes that most western hulls had their LL gear removed. Postwar, Llewellyn, Lloyd George, and Revelstoke remained or returned to RCN use as reserve guard, survey, tender, or training vessels. Later civilian names and dispositions are retained on their original ships records rather than documented as new ships.
The class roster currently links 10 ships. Named members include HMCS Coquitlam, HMCS Cranbrook, HMCS Daerwood, HMCS Kalamalka, HMCS Lavallee, HMCS Llewellyn, HMCS Lloyd George, and HMCS Revelstoke. The linked ships are associated with Royal Canadian Navy.
Historical significance
The class was a Canadian adaptation of the wartime Admiralty wooden motor-minesweeper concept to local building capacity and the magnetic-mine threat on both coasts. Its postwar reserve and civilian careers make ship continuity especially important.
Llewellyn class is most useful when read as both a design and a group of individual careers. The class page establishes the shared technical and operational context; the linked ship pages preserve differences in construction, service identity, deployment, transfer, preservation, and fate where those details are documented.
Ships in this class
Showing 10 recorded class members.
- HMCS Coquitlam
- HMCS Cranbrook
- HMCS Daerwood
- HMCS Kalamalka
- HMCS Lavallee
- HMCS Llewellyn
- HMCS Lloyd George
- HMCS Revelstoke
- HMCS Rossland
- HMCS St. Joseph
Sources and further reading
- Minesweepers Built in Canada In and Before WWII ↗ShipbuildingHistory.com · accessed 2026-09-19
- Ships’ histories ↗Royal Canadian Navy · accessed 2026-09-19
- Argonauta, Vol. 6 No. 3 (July 1989) — Canadian magnetic minesweeping and the 105-foot type ↗Canadian Nautical Research Society / Library and Archives Canada · accessed 2026-09-19
- Llewellyn-class minesweeper ↗Wikipedia · accessed 2026-09-19
- HMCS Revelstoke ↗Royal Canadian Navy · accessed 2026-09-19
- HMCS Coquitlam ↗Royal Canadian Navy · accessed 2026-09-19
- Radio Call Signs of the RCN — I/J/K/L ↗Jerry Proc / RCN radio history · accessed 2026-09-19
- Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922–1946Conway Maritime Press