Scatarie Island, once a navigational nightmare for shipping traffic, has claimed its first victim
Just past 2 a.m. Tuesday, a former Great Lakes shipping vessel now known as MV Miner broke free of its towing line and ran aground on the small island off the coast of Cape Breton.
“As the tug was towing it to Europe in heavy seas, it broke its tow line and the barge drifted,” said Seward Benoit, senior response officer with the Canadian Coast Guard environmental response.
“He couldn’t get back alongside of it because the seas were running too hard. It drifted and landed on Scatarie Island.”
The ship was en route to Aliaga, Turkey, where she will be dismantled for scrap.
The 12,000-tonne, 222-metre vessel has a cargo capacity of over 28,000 tonnes, but was empty at the time.
“It ended up on the north side of the island between the lighthouse and northwest cove,” said local resident Bob Martell.
“Where I live I can see right across there at night, the lights on the boats and everything. I’m living in Mira Gut for 43 years, I’ve never actually seen a boat hit and stay there and sink, but you hear about it.”
Wrecks near Scatarie Island include the 1911 sinking of the passenger steamer ferry SS Bruce and the 1873 wreck of the British steamer Saltwall on the Hay Island shoals near Scatarie Island.
The British warship HMS Feversham also wrecked on Scatarie Island during an October 1711 gale.
“That’s the first one there in a long time,” said James MacQueen, a fisherman from Round Island.
MacQueen viewed the vessel through binoculars from Waddens Cove.
“It is right up on the rocks. They tried to tow it off (Wednesday) with the tug but they couldn’t get it off. It could be a mess if they don’t get it out of there.”
Benoit said the coast guard monitored the vessel and efforts to remove it but there were no immediate environmental concerns.
“It does have 6.5 metric tonnes of marine diesel on board and that is basically to run the generator. It is empty outside of that.”
The latest attempt to move the vessel off the island resumed at high tide Thursday evening but as of 5:30 p.m. the ship had not moved.
Built in 1966 as Maplecliffe Hall, the vessel first sailed the Great Lakes hauling primarily iron ore and grain. She was renamed LeMoyne in 1988 by Canada Steamship Lines until becoming Canadian Miner for Upper Lakes Shipping in Toronto in 1994.
Now known as MV Miner, the ship sailed until 2009.
Source: The Cape Breton Post