WINDSOR, Ont. — The Detroit River’s Canadian shipping channel was closed Monday after ropes tying to shore a ship carrying 25,000 tons of gravel snapped.
Three mooring lines holding the 730-foot Algoma Niagara’s bow to a dock in Sandwich Town snapped around 4 a.m., according to Steve Salmons, president and CEO of the Windsor Port Authority. The river’s current swung the ship’s hull into the channel 90 degrees, while the stern’s mooring lines remained attached to the dock.
“The captain did what is the right protocol. He dropped anchor to stop it from swinging out,” Salmons said Tuesday. By the time the two-year-old ship stopped fully, it was already blocking the shipping channel.
A member of the ship’s crew was reportedly injured when the mooring lines broke, Salmons said, but he didn’t know the nature or severity of the injury.
Peter Winkley, spokesman for the Algoma Central Corporation, which owns the ship, would not confirm if a member of the Algoma Niagara’s crew had been injured. He declined to provide a statement about the incident.
The ship’s captain first reported the incident to Transport Canada’s Ontario office in Sarnia, who then notified the Windsor Port Authority, Salmons said. His organization immediately closed the Canadian side of the shipping channel to prevent collisions, and kept the channel closed for approximately 30 hours. During that time, the Windsor Port Authority coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard to route ships to the American side of the water.
“It caused minor inconvenience, but no backups,” Salmons said. If another ship had been in the area at the time, it could have collided with the anchored vessel and created a much worse situation. “We are fortunate across the board.”
The ship’s anchor dropped near to the Kinder Morgan pipeline that carries ethane below the Detroit River, but the pipeline was not damaged during the incident. As a precaution, Kinder Morgan “sealed and purged out” the line, Salmons said, but the company told him its monitoring gauges registered no change in pressure—the line, which is buried several metres below the riverbed, suffered no leak, and has resumed transporting ethane.
Two tugboats on Tuesday held the ship in place while crews cut the anchor’s chain and lowered it to the riverbed, Salmons said. The Algoma Central Corporation, the vessel’s owner, will come “as soon as possible” with a salvage operation to remove the anchor and chain.
The tugboats then maneuvered the ship back to its spot along Windsor’s shore near Prospect Avenue, where it was re-tied to the port and crew unloaded the gravel. Once the channel was clear, the Windsor Port Authority reopened the shipping route’s Canadian side.
“It’s not unusual for a mooring line to break—they do wear, they do get under stress,” Salmons said. “It was unusual that all three broke and it went out into the middle of the river.”
Representatives from Transport Canada have been on scene to investigate the incident, Salmons said. He did not have the results of the investigation and said he did not expect to see results for several days.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
