Ship shape
Farley Mowat finally being towed away
SHELBURNE
The people of Shelburne will be putting on their party hats when the rusty old Farley Mowat is finally towed away.
The federal government announce this week that the vessel – docked in town since 2014 – will be removed from the Shelburne Marine Terminal.
“We are ecstatic that the Farley Mowat will be on its way out shortly,” said Shelburne Mayor Karen Mattatall in an phone interview Friday.
Mattatall’s been told the boat could be off the docks in as little as a few weeks.
“If we get a couple of days notice, we’re certainly going to have a party, maybe make it an annual event,” said Mattatall.
“We’d invite everybody to come because it will be the party of the century.”
The departure can’t come soon enough as the town is scheduled to host its annual Shelburne Founder’s Days from July 14-16 and will have a visit from a number of Tall Ships Aug. 14-15.
Mattatall says the vessel
has cost her town more than $200,000 including unpaid wharfage fees and the cost of pumping out water to make sure it doesn’t sink.
“That bill alone has cost over $20,000.”
South Shore-St. Margarets MP Bernadette Jordan’s private member’s motion M-40
– which passed in the House of Commons unanimously in November – promised to take “meaningful action” on the issue of abandoned and derelict vessels.
The motion includes a plan to remove the roughly 600 vessels in Canadian waters, and hold polluters to account.