A barge carrying wood chips that suffered a crack in its hull had to be towed briefly up to Dundarave Beach as crews worked to fix the problem.
A tug boat picked up the barge in the Fraser River early Wednesday morning to take it to the Sunshine Coast and noticed it begin to list to one side, according to John Fowlis, vice-president of fleet maintenance for Seaspan, the company that owns the barge.
Crews tried pumping the water out, but the problem worsened, requiring them to bring the barge to a beach in case it began to sink.
"That was a precaution to make sure if the barge really is taking on water and we're having an incident with a higher degree of severity, we're able to put the back end of the barge against the beach so it doesn't sink any further," said Fowlis. "That's standard procedure in our industry, but we don't have to do it very often."
Seaspan used a barge with a crane on it to lift part of the cargo into the hold of another barge, then pulled the barge back to Vancouver drydock in North Vancouver for repairs shortly after noon.
What they found was a gash in the back end where the water was leaking out.
"Probably it happened at a tie up," said Fowlis. "It's kind of like parking your car in a city lot in North Vancouver. Some days it comes out unscathed, some days you have a fender bender done to you.
"We'll repair it and the barge will complete its voyage sometime tonight."
None of the wood chips spilled in the ocean during the incident, said Fowlis, and it's not uncommon to have leaks in barges, but this one garnered more attention because of where it was fixed.
"It usually happens in the Fraser River so it's not quite as visible as pulling up to Dundarave," he said.
