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NavSource Online: Patrol Craft Escort
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HMS Kilham (BEC 7)
HMS Kilham (Z 07)
ex-PCE-833
ex-PC-833

PCE-833 was transferred to Great Britain.

PCE-827 Class Patrol Craft Escort:

Laid down 26 February 1943 as PC-833 by the Pullman Standard Car Co., Chicago, IL

Reclassified PCE-833 in April 1943

Launched 2 August 1943

Transferred to Great Britain 9 October 1943 and commissioned HMS Kilham (Z 07)

Reclassified BEC-7

Transferred to the State Department, Foreign Liquidation Commission for disposal in November 1946

Returned to U.S. custody in December 1946

Struck from the Naval Register in 1947

Sold in 1949 to S/A Investment (Fylkesbaatane i Sogne og Fjordane, Mgrs.) of Bergen, Norway and converted to a passenger ship

Renamed M/S Sognefjord in 1950

Sold in 1958 to Fylkesbataane i Sogne og Fjordane of Bergen

Operated on the Norwegian west coast until 1982 then sold to Filmeffekt A/S of Oslo, Norway and renamed Orion

Sold in 1984 to K/S Orion Film A/S of Bergen and laid up

Sold in 1987 to Matkat OY of Helsingfors, Finland

Sold again in 1991 to Orion Risteilyt O/Y of Hamina, Finland and renamed Orion II

Sold in 1996 to Jaako Mathias Eriksson of Honduras

Sold again in 1997 to an unknown buyer in Thailand and renamed Orient Explorer

Currently for sale (October 2019) for $129,000 at Sabah, Malaysia by Global One Yacht Sales, at Wehrlen Brothers Marina, 197 Princeton Ave., Brick, NJ, 08724.

Specifications:

Displacement 640 t.

Length 180' 6"

Beam 33'

Draft 9' 8"

Speed 15 kts.

Complement 100

Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose mount, three 40mm mounts, five 20mm mounts, two depth charge tracks, four depth charge projectors, and two depth charge projectors (hedgehogs)

Propulsion: Two 900bhp General Motors 12-567A diesel engines, Falk single reduction gear, two shafts.

Click on thumbnail for full size image	Size	Image Description	Source
PCE-833
	61k	Line drawing of PCE-833	Raimo A. Wirrankoski Finland
HMS Kilham (Z 07)
	22k	Freetown, West Africa
M/S Sognefjord
	98k	Left, the M/S Sognefjord © Peter Asklanders	Raimo A. Wirrankoski Finland
M/S Orion
	68k	M/S Orion II © Sten Carlsson	Raimo A. Wirrankoski Finland
M/S Orient Explorer
	72k	14 September 2004 Orient Explorer at Langkawi Island, Kuah Bay, Malaysia	Reinier van de Wetering
	74k
	94k
	46k	c. 2019 Sabah, Malaysia	Michael Weinert Photo added 10 October 2019