The James Whalen has sunk
Crews are limited in what can be done immediately with the historic Tug Boat
The historic James Whalen tug boat at Kaministiquia River Heritage Park sunk into the river on Sunday morning.
“The tug boat has taken on water again over the period of time during the rain and the thawing in spring here and we were unable to observe any change until this time,” said Cory Halvorsen, manager of parks and open spaces.
“It looks like it took on enough water to become fully submerged and disconnect from the mounts on the dock as well.”
This is not the first time the 117-year-old tug boat took on too much water, the James Whalen also partially sank last year but crews were able to pump enough water out to keep it from fully submerging, this year will be a completely different story.
“I think we’re dealing with a completely different situation this time. Last year we were able to respond before it got to this point and we were able to pump the water out and get it back out of the water,” said Halvorsen.
“But now we’re looking at a different situation where it’s fully submerged and I’m not sure if there will be an option to get it afloat or how we’re going to move it this time.”
Crews are limited in what can be done immediately other than informing the Coast Guard and monitoring to make sure there are no environmental impacts which Halvorsen says will be unlikely as there is no fuel or similar contaminants on the vessel. – tbnewswatch
article website here
To to website for photos
A perfect metaphor for the state of this city. Thunder Bay is FUBAR. No amount of money can save this city now. Our high salaried residents of City Hall can’t afford to maintain the infrastructure we have now.
Rising costs drive Thunder Bay’s roads budget millions into the red
And this is with $20 million of free money from TbayTel.
The Lakehead Transportation Museum wants to move the tug over to the Pool 6 site. There, the tug would receive the TLC it needs by people who REALLY care about our transportation history. Not sure about now what happens now.
How much to refloat the tug? More than it would have cost to fix the problem that caused the tug to partially sink last year. A lot more.