Cargo Ship ‘Thamesborg’ Remains Aground in Arctic as Icebreaker Arrives on Scene With Sea Ice Building

A month after running aground the Dutch cargo vessel Thamesborg remains aground atop a shoal along Canada’s Northwest Passage. Over the weekend an icebreaker, Botnica, arrived from Europe with a stop in Nuuk, Greenland after a nearly 3-week trip. The vessel is the fourth dispatched to aid in the recovery effort. Thamesborg was en route from Lianyungang, China to Baie-Comeau in eastern Canada when it ran aground on September 6.

Coastal tug Beverly M I arrived on scene on September 22 together with the cargo vessel Silver Copenhagen. Since then part of Thamesborg’s cargo, consisting of carbon blocks, has been transferred to Silver Copenhagen. Another cargo vessel, Nunalik, stopped at the incident site last week likely to offload the remainder of the blocks.

The presence of the Finnish-built icebreaker Botnica provides the operator with critical flexibility as sea ice begins to return to the Northwest Passage. With a bollard pull of 117 tonnes it is significantly more powerful than the Beverly M I tug which remains on standby in the area. The icebreaker also gives responders more options for moving Thamesborg out of the area should they encounter sea ice during the upcoming towing operation. 

Botnica is a multipurpose support vessel regularly chartered out during summer months. During the winter it is operated by Estonia’s Port of Tallinn to keep Baltic Sea shipping lanes open. The 6,370 tonnes vessel was built in 1998. 

With winter fast approaching and ice starting to form in the northern reaches of the Northwest Passage the vessel’s operator, Wagenborg, aims to refloat the vessel in the coming week, weather conditions permitting. 

Based on the Canadian Ice Service sea ice has begun to build in Barrow Strait to the north of the accident site. It is unclear if Wagenborg aims to tow Thamesborg out of the Arctic in an easterly or westerly direction.

With the Barrow Strait possibly inaccessible by the time the vessel has been refloated another option in an easterly direction could be a transit via the Fury and Hecla Strait leading into Fox Basin to the north of the Hudson Bay. Though sea ice has also begun to build up in this strait based on the latest ice charts. An ice-free path remains in a westerly direction through the Amundsen Gulf toward Alaska and the Beaufort Sea. 

The Northwest Passage traditionally closes for commercial shipping at some point in October, though the exact time frame varies from year to year. Last year Wagenborg’s ice-strengthened Avonborg transited the route in an easterly direction in early November.

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