Port hears recommendations to keep sternwheeler secure

Severe weather, variable weather forecasts, and lack of remote access to onboard weather and pitch/drift data were among the identified root causes. Moorage line age and the lack of certain lifecycle management plans for lines were also implicated, alongside potentially insufficient slack in a galvanized chain, and a lack of remote cameras that may have delayed response.

The team recommended the port install security cameras for the dock and Thunder Island crossing — a potentially expensive security measure that would improve safety around the marina generally — and a “really loud” unmooring alarm on the sternwheeler, to alert its handlers if important lines snapped.

JettyLight, the company operating the sternwheeler for the port, has already implemented lifestyle monitoring systems for the complex system of moorage lines, and installed a weather station the crew can monitor from their phones.

Currently the marina has no security cameras, Port Executive Director Jeremiah Blue noted, and “it’s something that we drastically need to do.”

Another need: Update the Port Emergency Action Plan to include marine incidents.

The hope, in the event of another unscheduled unmooring, is to find out about it before the boat is out of reach.

“We had to wait for an eyewitness to say, ‘Hey, it’s floating down river!’” said commissioner and RCA team member Albert Nance.

“We still have an unanswered question,” Blue noted then. “What would have happened” if the sternwheeler hadn’t gone into the locks?

With no response plan in place, and little access to the middle of the river, the sternwheeler could have set off down the middle of the river and “gone until it stopped.”

Had it not become stuck on the Thunder Island bridge, said Blue, the port might just have had to watch their sternwheeler float away, hoping to catch it somewhere at the other end of its downriver journey.

In the future, Blue said, he hopes the Sternwheer could operate at Vancouver in winter, leaving before any storms hit. In the meantime, “it’s not great for it to stay here in the winter, but it’s doable,” he said.

The commission also debated, but tabled for now, the idea of a net and signage to deter people from jumping off the Thunder Island bridge — or catch them if they do.

Repairs to the fishing platforms destroyed by the unmoored sternwheeler are proceeding on schedule, Blue said, as are repairs to the bridge itself.