The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) maintains a fleet of Cape-class motor lifeboats based on a motor lifeboat design used by the United States Coast Guard. In September 2009 the CCG announced plans to add five new lifeboats, bringing the total number of Cape-class lifeboats to 36.
The vessels are staffed by a crew of four, two of whom are rescue specialists. In spite of its name, the CCGS Cape Roger is a larger patrol vessel, not a Cape-class lifeboat. The CCG also maintains some larger motor lifeboats based on Arun-class lifeboats designed in the United Kingdom. In 2021 a contract was awarded to Ocean Pacific Marine to upgrade the class over a 7 year period.
Design
Cape-class motor lifeboats have displacements of , total lengths of and beams of . Constructed from marine-grade aluminium, ships have draughts of . They contain two Caterpillar 3196 diesel engines providing a combined . They have two four-blade propellers, and each ship's complement is four crew members and five passengers.
The lifeboats have maximum speeds of and cruising speeds of . Cape-class lifeboats have fuel capacities of and ranges of when cruising. They are capable of operating at wind speeds of and wave heights of . They can tow ships with displacements of up to and can withstand winds and -high breaking waves.
Communication options include Raytheon 152 HF-SSB and Motorola Spectra 9000 VHF50W radios, and a Raytheon RAY 430 loudhailer system. The lifeboats also support the Simrad TD-L1550 VHF-FM radio direction finder. Raytheon provides a number of other electronic systems for the lifeboats, including the RAYCHART 620, the ST 30 heading indicator and ST 50 depth indicator, the NAV 398 global positioning system, a RAYPILOT 650 autopilot system, and either the R41X AN or SPS-69 radar systems.