In the 1970s, a pop culture phrase for something gone wrong was “Houston, we have a problem.”
The line was attributed to astronaut James Lovell, commander of the Apollo 13 space mission in 1970 when the spacecraft developed a serious mechanical problem while in space, forcing abandonment of a planned attempt to land on the moon.
It is not exactly word for word what the astronaut said, but it was close enough to become an every-day catch phrase by those who lived in that era.
A few people who remember the 1970s in Port Hood, Nova Scotia, probably muttered that line on Monday morning, December 17, 2007 when they awoke in the midst of a winter storm.
One of the first pieces of news they heard was that a huge barge carrying 9,000 gallons of fuel was adrift and tossing around in high winds and 20-foot seas, just off their shores.
The Houston, 475 feet in length with a 78-foot beam, was drifting towards Henry Island, located a short distance west of Port Hood.
The American barge had been under tow by the tug Eileen M Roehrig, enroute to Mexico from Montreal. The 100-foot tug, built in Louisiana in 1982, was a relatively powerful vessel with two 16-cylinder-diesel engines rated at 4,200 horsepower with twin props. But as powerful as the Roehrig might have been, she was no match for the power of the northwest Atlantic Ocean when caught in a harsh December storm.
On Sunday night, the American tug could no longer control the movements and direction of the barge and in fact, was at the mercy of the Houston that had taken on its own course and was aimlessly dragging the ship with it.
It is not known what happened for the tug and barge to severe connections or exactly when it happened i.e. whether it was Sunday night or early Monday morning. Some think it’s possible that the towline snapped while both vessels were tossing and heaving in wild seas. However, observers contacted feel the tug’s captain thought that his crew and tug were in jeopardy and rather than risk lives, he decided to release the barge.
What is certain though is that a potential environmental disaster and the loss of a multi-million dollar vessel were at risk on Monday, December 17 and no one was more aware of that than Canadian Coast Guard officials in Nova Scotia.
Early Monday morning, the Superintendent of Coast Guard (CG) Operations in Dartmouth got word of the drifting barge and wasted no time in activating a rescue mission.
At 7:35 a.m., officers on the bridge of the CG ship Edward Cornwallis received a call advising them of the barge that presented a hazard to shipping in St George’s Bay, but more importantly, they were made aware of the consequences of what could happen if the Houston washed ashore.
The Edward Cornwallis was docked in Mulgrave where it had taken shelter from the storm. Likewise, another CG ship, the Terry Fox was also in port in the Canso Strait taking shelter from the storm before resuming regular ice-breaking duties in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Both ships were less than 30 miles south from the stranded barge and if all went well, they should reach the Houston in less than three hours, depending on sea conditions.
CG records show that engines were readied immediately after the call from Dartmouth and just past 8 a.m., both CG vessels had untied from dock and were proceeding through to the Strait of Canso Canal.
By 9 a.m., both ships, led by the Terry Fox, had cleared the canal and were into open sea, steaming toward the location where the drifting barge was last reported.
The commanding officer of the Terry Fox was made the on-scene commander for the operation, but obviously both captains would examine and discuss the necessary requirements to complete a successful mission — a rare opportunity in fact because most similar missions are carried out with just one CG vessel available.
It wasn’t difficult picking up the big barge on radar so there was no time wasted in searching for the Houston and at 10:30 a.m., the two Coast Guard ships arrived on the scene, 6.1 miles west of Henry Island.
Both the Cornwallis and Terry Fox circled the Houston, assessing the condition of the drifting barge. It didn’t take long to see that the drifting vessel was being pushed fairly quickly on a course heading toward Henry Island located just offshore from Port Hood.
It soon became evident that the towline was hanging from chain bridles under the bow and that any attempt to take the barge in tow would require men from one of the CG ships to get onboard the Houston.
Boarding a large vessel in storm conditions is often far more difficult than carrying out a similar exercise on a small fishing vessel.
The Houston was not carrying a load of anything other than the 9,000 gallons of fuel for its own use. The barge was riding high in the water and tumbling around in the seas like a barrel. One of the men who would later attempt boarding said the barge was heaving to extreme lists from one side to the other.
Both Coast Guard ship captains knew that getting men from a small rubber boat to climb up the steel side of the barge would be dangerous, but the stakes were high and the men were trained to handle situations like this.
To make matters worse, weather and sea conditions were deteriorating.
Captain Richard Smith from the Cornwallis reported that winds were still high at 30-35 knots (65 kilometers) and that the 10-12-foot seas had increased to 12-15 feet. Heavy snow squalls further aggravated conditions for the crews by reducing visibility and, at times, making it difficult to see.
However, Coast Guard missions are almost never carried out in ideal weather or sea conditions and everyone from the commanding officers to the deck hands knew that it was their duty to do whatever was possible to keep the rolling barge from foundering on shore. And that is why the officers in charge decided to deploy a fast rescue craft (FRC) from the Edward Cornwallis to put men on the barge, if possible and the Terry Fox would stand off and get its heavy tow gear ready to receive a line from the barge. Captain Richard Smith wrote in his report later that given the adverse conditions at the time, the operation would be an extremely difficult and dangerous task.
“This requires a tremendous effort on the part of her crew owing to the large and very heavy equipment the ship employs in this regard,” wrote Captain Smith.
As it turned out, he was right.
Join us next month for the conclusion of how a dangerous boarding and subsequent containment of a large ship was carried out on Part II of Houston, We Have a Problem.
