Americas

Canadian Coast Guard ship Ann Harvey runs aground after hitting rock

The Canadian Coast Guard vessel Ann Harvey (1,815 dwt, built 1987), hit a rock and took on water on the south coast of the island of Newfoundland on Wednesday

The vessel was doing routine work on navigational buoys five nautical miles southwest of the town of Burgeo when the incident happened. As water leaked into the propulsion motor room, the ship, a light icebreaker with a fairly thick steel hull, ran aground.

Twenty six crew members and two cadets were on board at the time. The cadets and two non-essential crew members were removed but the rest of the crew remained aboard. There were no serious injuries reported.

Coast guard lifeboat W.G. George went to the scene and attached a tow line to the stranded ship.

Two other coast guard ships, including heavy icebreaker Louis S. St.-Laurent, (4,640 dwt, built 1969) as well as a Coast Guard helicopter, are en route to help with rescue operations.

Other coast guard vessels went to the ship’s assistance. A dive team will assess the damage on Thursday and patch up the Ann Harvey so it can be towed back to St. John’s, the capital and largest city of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Captain Jim Chmiel, Superintendent of the Coast Guard Regional Operations Centre in St. John’s, said: “We’ll be doing an investigation on why this happened, and exactly what did happen, but until the ship gets safely back to St. John’s, we won’t have those answers.”

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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