Work to refloat supercarrier Tregurtha on St. Mary’s River continues

A supercarrier with 62,000 tons of coal is hard aground in the St. Mary’s River. It is blocking all downbound cargo ships from Lake Superior.

The thousand foot long Paul Tregurtha ran into a rocky bottom around 3:00 a.m. Wednesday. Coast Guard Senior Investigator Rob Scott says she is stuck hard. “The bow was damaged upon initial impact with the rocky bottom on the west side of the channel.Subsequently, the stern swung around to the east, and now the vessel basically straddles across the span of the channel grounded on both the bow and the stern.”

Scott says the Tregurtha took on water, complicating efforts to re-float her Thursday. “There was structural damage in way of the bow and the cargo holds are separately skinned.This is a double-bottomed type vessel and the structural damage was sustained to what would amount to the first layer of skin of the vessel.” Scott says this means the supercarrier is not in danger of sinking.

No injuries were reported, and no pollution has been detected from the supercarrier. According to Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read, it is hard to say how long the salvage operation will take. Read said, “We do have the experts out there, the salvage experts and also the Coast Guard, and the most important thing is that we do it safely.”

The Tregurtha is blocking three ships downbound from Lake Superior, with another on the way. Upbound traffic is getting through on the eastern channel.The Coast Guard may use that for the downbound vessels too.