Could you get an aircraft carrier up the St Lawrence Seaway and if so has it ever happened?

Question

Could you get an aircraft carrier up the St Lawrence Seaway and if so has it ever happened?

Answer 1

you can get a small one up the ST.Lawrence river but the locks of the seaway are too narrow they are only 79' across. Most carriers are 100+ feet wide. canada used to have a carriers the Warrior/magnificent and bonaventure.

Answer 2

During WWII there were smaller "jeep" carriers that were in the Great Lakes, for training.  As far as I know, Fleet carriers have never ventured into these waters.

Answer 3

You could take an aircraft carrier up the St Lawrence to a certain point.  By the time you got to Quebec City, you'd want to start thinking about turning around.  They are over 1,000 feet long and require almost 40 ft of water to float.  While it might fit under the Pierre Laporte bridge, I'm not certain it would fit into some of the seaway locks further up.  The locks are designed to take a freighter that's as long as and aircraft carrier but a freighters hull doesn't flair out at the deck the way it does on a "flat top".

Answer 4

What a great question this is... Hmmmm....

According to the St. Lawrence Seaway's Management Agency...  The maximum size vessel that can travel from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario is:

740 ft. in length

                       (length is restricted because of sharp turns

                       and bends in the river... )

78 ft. in width (beam)

26 ft., draft

                        and vessel can not exceed

116.5 ft. in height above water



And since 1949 (when the Agency began keeping records of all vessels passing through - no "aircraft carrier" has passed through the St. Lawrence Seaway.

So, for "today's modern aircraft carriers" the answer is No, they can not. Though some of our "light" carriers are under 740 feet in length... none fall under the width or draft maximums.

However...

Canada's first aircraft carrier HMCS Warrior ran aground in the St. Lawrence River in 1946.

and

Aircraft carriers that were called "Carrier Vessel Escorts" which had no armament on them and their fly deck was shorter and they were lighter than the regular carriers... did however make the trip into Lake Ontario... where these "Carrier Vessel Escorts" were actually used as "training vessels".

Here is a picture of one such "Carrier Vessels" the USS Sable - a "Carrier Vessel Escort" that is pictured headed upbound on the St. Lawrence.

http://www.mhsd.org/photogallery/images/...

The next link - is a "MUST SEE" for any and all boating enthusiasts...  I found the photo listed under the...  

"US Navy's smallest aircraft carrier"

Your just not going to believe this one...  BR549

http://rides.webshots.com/album/56158594...

Happy & Safe Boating!