YAG training vessels

YAG (Yard Auxiliary, General) training vessels are wooden boats built between 1954 and 1958 and based at CFB Esquimalt in Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada. The vessels were used for training Royal Canadian Navy regular naval officers, naval reservists, and members of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets in basic seamanship, vessel handling, and navigation. According to the Department of National Defence, "in 2000, a total of 1830 personnel were deployed on the YAGs for a total of 585 days and steamed over 25000 nmi in support of training."

Layout
YAGs displace 70 tonnes, and are divided into six major below-decks compartments:
 * Right forward
 * Chain locker
 * Forward cabin, containing the galley
 * One of the heads (washrooms)
 * Officers' eating and sleeping areas
 * Navigation room, containing the gyroscopic (gyro) compass

Roughly midships, just aft of the forward cabin, is the engine room, containing twin Detroit Diesel 6-71 series engines (totaling 320 horsepower), as well as a Yanmar diesel generator.

Abaft the engine room is the after cabin. Depending on the YAG, it may sleep up to fourteen people (twelve on 312), and contains the other head, and a small shower. Two layers of bunks run along the hull, with a table on the centreline. Right aft is tiller flats, containing the steering gear, a black water treatment system, engineering and general storage.

Above decks is the wheelhouse, mounted on the forward cabin's coaming; aft of that, the exposed breezeway; and, mounted on the after cabin's coaming, a Zodiac launch as well as a food locker and barbecue. Above the wheelhouse is an open bridge, fitted with chart table and a gyro compass repeater. A second gyro repeater is fitted on the quarterdeck. Each YAG is equipped with a small navigation radar, with the display located in the wheelhouse.

The washrooms are equipped with a pump-action lever, that can be used to pump sewage into the black water treatment tanks held aboard or into the ocean water.

Retirement
The YAG 300 series have been replaced by the Patrol Class Training Tenders Orca-class training vessels as of fall 2008. The first tender, Orca, was launched August 9, 2006 at Victoria Shipyard in Esquimalt, British Columbia and was handed over to the Navy on November 17, 2006.