Permanent joint maritime policing legislation proposed
By Robert Matas
Vancouver, BC — From Friday’s Globe and Mail
Canadian and U.S. authorities are talking about extending cross-border security measures that were implemented for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and were to end with the closing of the Winter Games.
The RCMP and the U.S. Coast Guard have jointly patrolled the waters off Vancouver since the beginning of the month, boarding nearly 200 vessels and interviewing about 500 people in their efforts to maintain security, RCMP Sergeant Duncan Pound of the border integrity program said in an interview.
Almost every small craft in the vicinity of the maritime border has been contacted to confirm the legitimacy of its voyage. Although some arrests on outstanding criminal warrants have been made and some vessels have been sent back to port for not being safe, none of the incidents involved a threat to Olympic security.
keep reading »
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Tags: · canada, maritime border, USCG / U.S. Coast Guard
Last week’s news of the sinking school ship Concordia, which sailed from Nova Scotia to destinations around the world, rocked many who read of the 64 students, staff and crew plucked from the ocean.
The ship was lost, but luckily, all souls were saved.
It’s important to remember in a situation like this that the choice to take on an adventure of this sort lies directly with those who step onto the ship. With the decision to try out something new, they accept the risk that the worst can happen.
To some, it may appear that the worst did happen in this case. The ship was lost, sunk after trouble in rough seas. But the best news is the level of professionalism that must have followed through each step of the operation, from the moment the ship got into trouble, until the moment the group watched it sink beneath the ocean’s surface while waiting for rescue in a lifeboat. It’s a sad event, but it could have been worse.
For the past several years, such organizations have been under public scrutiny. From television shows to Hollywood movies sensationalizing life aboard a ship, people have wondered what really happens on a tall ship.
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Tags: · canada, sinking, tall ships
This weeks ship photo of the week is of the USCGC Healy and the CCGS Louis S. St- Laurent side-by-side during last years expedition to map the artic seabed. Next week, the two icebreakers are set to rendezvous again in the Beaufort Sea before heading to western Arctic waters north of Alaska and the Yukon or as far north into the Canada Basin as the ice will allow.
The goal of this years 41 day mission is to determine just how far the North American continental shelf extends, but it won’t deal with a long-running dispute over a resource-rich part of the Beaufort Sea.
More reading on this can be found HERE and HERE
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Tags: · arctic, canada, Icebreaker, USCG, uscg_photo
The Windoc blocks the canal. Alex Howard
In August 2001 the Bulk Carrier Windoc was lined up on the Welland Canal’s Bridge 11 in Ontario Canada. After recieving the flashing amber approach light indicating that the bridge operator was aware of the vessel the captain lined up on the centerline and maintained a speed of 5 knots. Minutes later while the vessel was half way through the bridge started descending.
The Bridge Team’s Story
When the vessel was approximately halfway under the bridge, the third officer observed that the bridge signal lights were solid red and the lift span was descending. At 2053, the master sounded a few blasts on the ship’s whistle. The master, without identifying himself or the bridge in question, called the TCC on VHF channel 14 about the lowering of the bridge. The master quickly stopped the engines and ordered an evacuation of the wheelhouse.The master and third officer left the wheelhouse by the starboard navigation bridge wing. As they proceeded down the external bridge access ladder, the span of the bridge struck the vessel in way of the wheelhouse front windows, subsequently destroying the vessel’s wheelhouse and funnel. The wheelsman remained at his station in the wheelhouse and lay down on the deck as the bridge span passed overhead. He freed himself from the debris and descended by the deckhouse stairwell alive.
Miraculously no one was killed in the event. [Continue Reading →]
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Tags: · Bridges, canada, cargo ship, collision, damage photo, death, fire, Firefighting, ntsb, ship, ship photo, ship photographs, survival, windoc, youtube
Ship Name: RCMP vessel St Roch (pronounced “Saint Rock”)
Vital Statistics (1944 configuration):
Length: 31.8 m (104’3”) Beam: 7.5 m (24’7”) Draft: 3.25 m (10’8”) Tonnage: 196.5 t
Hull: Douglas fir with Australian gumwood outer hull; rounded hull to allow ice to slide underneath; steel plate covering bow
Power source: 150 hp Union diesel, 6 cylinder; schooner rigged
Built: Burrard Drydock Shipyard, North Vancouver, 1928 (Charles Druguid design with modifications by Thomas Halliday)
St Roch was built specifically for the RCMP to patrol the Arctic. The ship was named after the Quebec east riding of Ernest Lapointe, then Federal Minister of Justice responsible for the RCMP. Launched on May 7, 1928, she began a long and successful career that ended in 1950 when officially retired from duty in Halifax. St Roch sailed through the Panama Canal in 1954 to return to Vancouver.
What was the significance of St Roch?
- First vessel to sail the Northwest Passage from west to east (1940 – 1942)
- First vessel to complete the Northwest Passage in one season (1944), also making it the first to use the more northerly, deeper route and to complete the Passage in both directions
- First vessel to circumnavigate North America
- Survived 12 winters stuck in the ice for 10 months at a time
- King George VI awarded the prestigious Polar Medal to Henry Larsen and the crew who sailed during the 1944 voyage
- Declared a National Historic Site (1962)
What was the RCMP’s role in the Arctic? [Continue Reading →]
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Tags: · canada, History, Icebreaker, interesting_ship, northwest passage
Our photo of the week shows the Canadian Tall Ship S/V Concordia undersail. It was taken by Flikr photographer Oriano nicolau. The original can be found HERE.
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Tags: · canada, flickr, Photo, tall_ship
Video of TSB report on sinking of Queen of the North. Click on the blue ‘Start Presentation’ button. (its slow loading).
It also has video simulation of the incident and chart & radar data from retrieved hard drives from the ship. Alternatively you can read the full report HERE.
(Ed. note: Thanks to BitterEnd reader Rod Pugh for leading us to this link.)
___________________________
This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.
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Tags: · canada, ntsb, queen of the north, Video
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