Bunker tanker should not have sailed on open water, blogger says

The "Arca 1" had no business in the open waters off the Cabot Strait according to the marine industry blogger Mac Mackay, a retired Halifax-based architect. Mackay said he was more than a little surprised when he heard that the tanker, had departed Sorel, near Montréal, and was moving into the open waters of the Bay of St. Lawrence and Canso Strait. This vessel was intended to run around Montreal Harbour delivering fuel to other ships, it was never intended to go to sea, it was never supposed to go out in the rough stuff. The vessel’s flat hull and exterior propulsion system were not meant for voyages on the ocean. Already on Jan 4, he wrote: “Due to its fairly delicate outdrive propulsion system, I expect the ship to travel in good weather only, hop-skipping to convenient sheltered ports.” Records indicate the ship, recently purchased by a Mexican firm and registered in Panama, had departed Sorel on Dec. 31, made port in the Magdalen Islands, and was expected to arrive in Sydney early on Jan 8 ahead of the forecasted major storm. The crew may have tried to get ahead of the storm that was coming in and they might have made it because the harbour pilot was expecting them at 2 a.m., but they fell short Mackay said questions must also be raised as to why the vessel was permitted to depart on an ocean-going voyage. “There’s a gap, because if the vessel was registered in Canada, then the laws of the Canada Shipping Act would apply and Transport Canada’s ship safety people would have inspected it and may have said yes or no, or that it could only be sailed in daylight hours, or under some other conditions. “But once it became Panamanian, Canada is obliged to enforce international treaties.! The vessel, built in 1963 as the Imperial Lachine, was sold to Mexican interests last year. In 1997, the ship’s then-owner Imperial Oil had the tanker towed to Halifax, but it was never used and was returned to Montréal the following year.