THUNDER BAY – It looks like the historic James Whalen, which sunk to the bottom of the Kaministiquia River back in May, will remain at the bottom of the river for a while longer due to the logistics of raising the vessel says Cory Halvorsen manager of Parks and Open Spaces.
“We weren’t able to just simply deploy someone to go and raise it. It did require some planning, due to the weight of the vessel,” he said.
“So over the last few weeks, we’ve been collecting information and going through the planning process to inform some procurement documents because we’re going to be reaching out and getting bids from any local contractors that have the capacity and the tools to put forward a price.”
When the tugboat first sank into the river, a few local businesses offered to help pull it out but Halvorsen says that they couldn’t move forward with those offers until the full scope of what was required to actually lift the vessel was known.
“Because it was more complex than possibly originally thought, we started to step back and couldn’t just simply work with one of the individual companies that had reached out,” he said. “Rather, we’re putting together all the information so that we can get options from multiple sources and really work towards the best solution to raise and salvage the vessel.
The documents detailing the requirements are just being finalized and next will come to the bidding process from local companies and Halvorsen says that it will probably be a few weeks before we’ll know which company will be doing the work.
