A pleasure boat sunk in local waters over the weekend.
The Seamee II, a 25-foot wooden yacht built in 1959, started to take on water in the Cattermole Slough overnight Friday, according to local boater John Buchanan.
It is unknown who owns the boat and no one appears to have been onboard at the time it sank, though, according to Buchanan, there were signs someone had been living onboard recently. The boat had curtains and contained bowls and plates, he said.
Buchanan said he was alerted to the sinking by other locals on Saturday.
He went to check it out Saturday afternoon and found the boat almost completely submerged.
“I arrived and could see fuel leaking from the boat and much more trapped inside the cabin,” he said.
He contacted the Canadian Coast Guard and the Squamish RCMP, but neither were able to come out to deal with the sunk ship over the weekend.
Buchanan went back Sunday and cleaned up some of the fuel leaking from the boat, using an industrial spill kit, he said.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said local governments are in a tricky situation when it comes to seemingly ownerless watercraft sinking in their waters.
On the water, the vessel is within the federal government’s jurisdiction and when the boat is sunk and resting on the bottom it is within provincial jurisdiction. Heintzman explained.
“Local governments have a lot of difficulty in enforcing things and doing stuff on the waterfront and that is one of the reasons why we are going through the Marine Strategy so we can figure it out and figure out where and how we can act,” she said Monday morning.
The Coast Guard will be assessing the Seamee II, this week, according to Michelle Imbeau, communications advisor with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “There is no immediate threat of pollution at this time,” she told The Chief in an email.
The Chief will update this story as it develops.
