Tim S. Dool refloated
Officials say a cargo vessel that ran aground in the St. Lawrence River last month has been broken free.
The St. Lawrence Seaway Corporation said in an email that the Tim S. Dool was safely refloated early Monday morning and sailed under her own power to the Wilson Hill, N.Y, anchorage, where it will undergo a full inspection before continuing on its journey.
Crews had been lightering the boat all weekend, a process that involves removing cargo from the ship to a barge to facilitate moving it.
The ship was carrying a load of wheat grain through the St. Lawrence River on Nov. 23 when it ran aground in U.S. waters upstream from Morrisburg, Ont. The grounding drew ship-watchers and locals alike to marvel at the stuck ship, with many speculating about the cause of the grounding. The cause has not been confirmed.
U.S. and Canadian officials had attempted to refloat the boat using Groupe Ocean tugs coming from Quebec City earlier this month but the ship was fully grounded from bow to stern, making efforts to refloat the 225-metre ship difficult without removing weight.
The boat was outside the navigation channel and did not cause disruptions to shipping traffic or environmental pollution, officials say. No one was injured.
The 57-year-old Tim S. Dool is owned by the Algoma Central Corporation, a Canadian shipping company. The ship services the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.
Sal Mercogliano, host of What’s Going on with Shipping on YouTube, says its not uncommon for ships to touch the bottom of the St. Lawrence but the Tim S. Dool situation is more unique.
“In the case of the Dool, this ship is fully aground from bow to stern and usually you don’t get ships that are aground in this sort of condition,” he said.
“This is an issue that we don’t know exactly what the root cause of this is. Usually there’s only two things that explain accidents on ships. It’s either a human error or a mechanical error.”
He adds that the situation could have economic consequences down the line if the boat isn’t dislodged soon. “When you lose a ship like the Dool for a long, protracted period of time, it doesn’t just disrupt that one shipment, but it disrupts further shipments down the chain,” he said.
“Fortunately, this grounding did not shut down the Seaway. There are instances where such an incident could happen that could shut the Seaway down.”
CTV
We would like to take a moment to acknowledge Janey Anderson’s Ship Junkies – Lakes, Locks & Rivers Facebook page, Amy Daggett, Helen Cooper, Pat English, Ron Beaupre, Michael James Folsom and his St. Lawrence Seaway Ship Watchers Network, as well as Rene Beauchamp’s Seaway News Facebook page for going the extra mile to keep us all updated on the massive salvage effort.
MHSD’s Ahoy & Farewell III book
documents 30 years of laker history
Ahoy & Farewell III, the third installment of the Marine Historical Society of Detroit’s long-running series marking the MHSD’s 80th anniversary, is now available. The book documents the vessels we welcomed, and those to which we had to bid farewell, during the last 30 years. This 308-page, hardcover book features many color photos, with multiple images of each vessel referenced.
In a departure from the MHSD’s previous volumes, the nearly 308-page, hardcover book includes color photos, with multiple images of every vessel. The book’s authors are marine historians William Moran and Viktor Kaczkowski, and Know Your Ships publisher Roger LeLievre.
“Putting the book together has been a much greater challenge than any of us had expected,” Kaczkowski said. “With the influx of foreign-built new and used tonnage, writing the histories required a lot more research to ensure the information was correct, particularly due to the wide variety of languages that came into play.”
Order Ahoy & Farewell III now at MHSD.org.
