Skip to content

Submariner excited for new CFMETR role

Cmdr. Scott McVicar took over command of Nanoose Bay test ranges last month
8446090_web1_8390915_web1_170905-PQN-M-CFMETRProfile-ak-170831
The new commanding officer for CFMETR in Nanoose Bay, Cmdr. Scott McVicar, stands in front of the range’s badge. (Adam Kveton/Black Press)

While nothing beats working out on the water (or under it), Cmdr. Scott McVicar said he’s excited for his new role as commander of the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Range (CFMETR) in Nanoose Bay.

In an interview with The NEWS at CFMETR last month, the former commanding officer of the HMCS Victoria submarine discussed his background, his experience under the sea, and why he’s enthusiastic about commanding the internationally utilized facility.

“It’s exciting having command any time, but having command of a group of people like this, and especially with the responsibilities we carry in dealing with the U.S. allies, I think that’s exciting,” McVicar said. He took over command at CFMETR from Cmdr. Darren Rich on Aug. 18.

McVicar’s career in the Canadian Navy has spanned more than 30 years, but it wasn’t something he’d planned on, he said.

Interested in keeping his options open as he left high school in Ontario, McVicar applied to a military college as well as three universities. After being invited to summer training, he headed off to participate on the West Coast, and when September rolled around, he decided to make the short trip to Royal Roads Military College in Victoria and become a member of the Canadian Forces.

In 1986, he volunteered for the submarine service.

Though he said he didn’t know a whole lot about the vessels at the time, he wasn’t afraid of being underwater in a metal tube, either.

“I had never been on board a submarine until the first day I went to see a submarine … they just seemed interesting,” he said.

“I’m sure guys get on board them and find that they are small or there is not a lot of privacy, or all those sorts of things … that does bother some people. You know really quickly if you’re going to be able to live onboard a submarine or not.”

He describes the experience like being on a plane with no windows.

“The only guys who actually look out of the submarine, through a periscope, generally are the officers all the time, for safety and that. But that’s only when you’re up near the surface,” said McVicar. “If you’re deep, it’s just a room. And the fact that it happens to be completely surrounded by water is different.”

McVicar rose through the ranks until, in 2001, he was given command of the HMCS Victoria. While under his command, the HMCS Victoria served to re-establish a Canadian submarine presence in the Pacific for the first time in more than 29 years.

Since then he’s held several shore-based positions, including becoming the director of submarine operations for the Canadian Submarine Force organization.

This latest position as commanding officer at CFMETR is one that he’s been interested in for some time, he said.

As a submarine tactics officer in the Canadian Forces Maritime Warfare Centre more than 15 years ago, McVicar developed tests for new weapons to find out their capabilities in various circumstances, with many of those tests taking place at CFMETR.

Though many of McVicar’s career moves have been based on where he’s needed, or moving onto the next step rather than through his own decision, he said in this case he’d expressed interest in becoming the CO of CFMETR.

The more than 50-year-old facility, which is a joint U.S. and Canadian facility, is a fairly unique one when it comes to underwater testing, said McVicar.

“It’s a water area that is relatively quiet. It’s relatively well-protected. And therefore you can run an awful lot of tests here that allow the military and the government to advance as technology advances, as new equipment comes online. And all of that is in support of activities for Canadian sovereignty and U.S. sovereignty,” he said.

The facility is also used by other allies, including the Royal Australian Navy, the U.K., and Norway.

“For people who live in the region, who drive by on the highway and kind of look across and see there is something that looks like a bunch of ships by a jetty every now and then, or who are in the straits and keeping clear of a particular area of water as the water is active, then the understanding is that right in their midst is a fairly world-class facility with respect to doing underwater testing and research that is used by our allies a fair bit.”

One of the challenges McVicar expects to have at CFMETR is to keep the longstanding facility up-to-date technology-wise, to keep it as useful to Canada and Canadian allies as possible.

“When you are constantly having new technologies coming, and when you’re constantly having governments that change their emphasis and their focus, which has an impact on everything from how you operate in a particular place to the type of equipment that they will buy … you have to have a facility here that can support those types of things,” McVicar said.

“So if you’re bringing on a new class of ship, or if you’re bringing a new sonar or a new type of torpedo, as the technology advances, you want the range to advance with that.”