A barge lost last fall off the east coast of Labrador and found off the coast of Ireland this week was used to transport food and other supplies to the Arctic by a Quebec shipping firm.
The Malik 1 was on the deck of a ship owned by Groupe Desgagnés and on the way back from the Arctic to Montreal on Nov. 5 when it broke from its tethers and slipped into the heavy, rolling seas, said Marc Desgagnés, quality, safety, security and environmental manager with Groupe Desgagnés.
After the incident, the company hired a plane to locate the barge, but could find no trace of it.
The barge is used to deliver cargo to the remote communities and mining operations that the shipping company services.
“She got loose. She was secured on deck,” Desgagnés said.
“We had no news until two days ago (when) we got a call from the coast guard in Dublin.”
The call came in late in the workday and the receptionist alerted him to the startling development. It appears the barge didn’t take in any water and is seaworthy, but the insurer has sent a representative to Ballyglass to check it out. The company filed a claim after the barge broke loose from its ship.
“Maybe we are going to be able to bring it back, but that’s not confirmed yet,” Desgagnés said.
The barge is worth about $500,000.
The finding of the barge caused such a stir that the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), put out a news release about the unusual call that came in Monday night and required the charitable organization to spend seven hours towing the Malik 1 into Ballyglass, where it was a tight squeeze to fit the large barge into the village’s small harbour.
It has since been towed by a local fisherman to a roomier nearby harbour while the insurer sorts out what happens next.
The adrift barge was spotted by a passing fishing vessel. Mark Allen, Ballyglass station manager for the RNLI, said everyone is grateful it didn’t hit anything, as that could have been a marine catastrophe.
It’s the first time the RNLI has been called out to fetch a barge.
And it’s the first time Desgagnés knows of his firm losing one — he’s been with the family company about 25 years.
The Ballyglass lifeboat crew went out to sea at 7:20 p.m. local time and found the steel barge measuring 26 metres by 16 metres unsecured and floating. It took a bit of work to get it secured, Allen said.
The barge had drifted 3,080 kilometres in the six months since it slipped off the ship.
Because of the already filled-up Ballyglass harbourfront and the hour of arrival — 2 a.m. local time — the crew had to tie the barge up on the lifeboat’s mooring.
The volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around Ireland and the UK.
Allen said the barge, when spotted, was clean and in good shape. It was built in 2012.
It’s a bit of a chuckle now, since all ended well.
“It’s very, very unusual to get a call to a barge,” he said, adding it’s indeed an oddity for it to have come so far.
“To be fair, if a vessel had been hit by it, it would do some damage. It was a major threat to navigation.”
“It’s secured up … until further notice, until somebody makes a decision what they want to do with it.”
In fall 2016, a solar-powered houseboat washed ashore in Ireland after it drifted away from Portugal Cove.
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With files from the Canadian Press
