Two more derelict boats have been towed from the docks at Masset Harbour.
After seeing signs that either boat could sink any day, the Haida Nation and Canadian Coast Guard led a joint response to tow the 87-foot Western Star and 40-foot Emily Jade to shore on Saturday, Aug. 17.
Surrounded by bright yellow spill boom, the two large wooden fishing boats are now beached by the Masset seaplane dock. The Coast Guard will soon have them entirely removed from the water.
The two fishing boats have plenty of company.
Earlier this summer, another three derelict boats were towed from the harbour and hauled up onto the parking lot above the seaplane dock: the Montego Bay, Tanner’s Quest, and Haida Royal.
Coast Guard officials say a contractor has already been hired to demolish those three boats, all of which had flooded bilges and other problems. A demolition contract for the Western Star and Emily Jade is going to bid.
All five vessels will be cut up, binned and barged off-island.
The contractor will be required to keep the surrounding environment clean of spills or debris, and they must recycle all the materials that can be recycled.
The contractor is free to resell any steel, engines, pumps, portholes or any other equipment they can salvage.
In January, the Coast Guard fined owner Gary Jones $12,000 for failing to remove the 40-foot Dorothy Gale from the Masset Harbour after it was deemed a hazard.
The boat sank and slipped under one of the harbour docks, damaging it when the tide fell with the boat lodged underneath.
The Dorothy Gale was demolished and disposed of in March along with the 28-foot Godzilla, a pleasure boat that had partially sunk.
Another 33 boats are listed as wrecked, abandoned or hazardous across Haida Gwaii on the Coast Guard’s online inventory.
Most of the boats are less than 40 feet long.
An exception was the 61-foot Tsekoa tugboat that broke loose from the Daajing Giids dock in a storm last September and grounded on the tidal flats north of Robertson Island.
In that case, Haida Nation and Coast Guard staff saw that the Tsekoa’s fuel was largely contained. The tugboat was demolished and barged off-island the next month.
Many of Haida Gwaii’s remaining vessels due for a tow appear to be in Masset Sound or Daajing Giids with a few more in Port Clements, Alliford Bay, Sandspit, and at Langara Island.
Before the recent haul-outs, Masset Harbour seemed to have the majority of problem boats.
In 2019, the Village of Masset stepped in to manage the Delkatla Slough Harbour Authority that normally oversees Masset Harbour. But after five years, the village gave it up March 5.
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the village quit due to “the financial unsustainability of managing and operating the harbour.”
The Village of Masset had hired a wharfinger and councillors approved the harbour’s first-ever written policy guide.
But the village struggled to collect moorage fees to cover power and other operating costs at the harbour, including the cost of preventing derelict boats from sinking or spilling.
At the moment, the Masset Harbour is managed by DFO’s Small Craft Harbour program.
Athina Vazeos, a DFO spokesperson, said in an email that discussions are underway with a potential new harbour authority who has expressed interest in taking over the management lease.
For now, Vazeos said boat owners who dock at Masset Harbour are not being charged moorage fees.
“This is a temporary and interim arrangement that is subject to review,” she said.