NGPZ - another boat

[Marilyn Mason]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to get a crew of 14, 3- 20mm cannon (2 pounders to
the british) a dozen depth charges, 4 .303 machine guns  and a couple of
torpedo tubes on a 120" boat.  They were actually 112' displacing 79 tons.
Now a lot of what I just told you was bullshit ( the previous was the
information told to me about 45 years ago by one Lloyd Gowland [a friend's
dad] a survivor of the east coast sub patrols from Newfoundland to Jamaca on
one of these craft and Pete Lepage the owner of the Penentangushene "88").
Canadian made boats were numbered from 050 on up.  Pete's wife bought the
boat from the Canadian Navy .  The "88" was actually built at the Grew boat
works in my home town in 1943.  The boat was origanally designed for 3
engines and was capable of close to the speeds noted if the 3 Rollers were
available.  Due to Merlins being needed else where the boats normally had 2
engines capable of pushing them at 30 mph. They wer a lot more sea worthy
that the PT, MTB and German S boote.  But because they were slower they
armed them well to keep the S bootes at bay.  They did comendable service as
coastal sub chasers and convoy escorts.

Jim