The anchor of a barge in Scow Bay, a few miles south of Petersburg, came loose Wednesday morning. The large boat, which has housing on top, had been anchored in the area for multiple years. The boat drifted around the Wrangell Narrows before grounding on the north side of Scow Bay.
A storm force brought strong winds across parts of Southeast Alaska yesterday. According to the National Weather Service, there were strong winds along the water in Petersburg, but that wasn’t reflected in nearby weather stations. While north Clarence Strait and north Stevens Passage recorded gusts of up to 60 knots, Petersburg’s airport recorded gusts of up to 20 knots. According to the Petersburg Harbormaster’s Office, there were sustained 40 knot winds on the water in the Wrangell Narrows.
When longtime Petersburg resident and former barge owner Charles Davis woke up that morning, he was excited to not be out on the water.
“The weather was nasty,” said Davis. “I remember looking out the window thinking, ‘I’m glad I don’t have anything anchored up these days in this kind of weather,’ because you don’t get much sleep when it’s like that.”
That’s when Davis started receiving calls that a barge was loose. Since he used to own barges in the area, some people thought it may have belonged to him. The barge wasn’t his, but Davis said he knew it would be dangerous to have a boat that was more than 150 feet long drifting in the water.
“With the building on it like that, it could be a big kite,” said Davis, “it could be like a big battering ram running down the Narrows.”
According to the Harbormaster’s Office, when the barge broke free, it drifted across the Wrangell Narrows near a green channel marker by Kupreanof Island. The winds changed, and the barge drifted back near Mitkof Island, where it grounded.
Multiple good samaritans came to help move the barge. There were concerns that the barge could sustain more damage as the tides changed.
“The main concern was that the tide would go out and a rock would put a hole in the barge, and then it would be full of water and stuck there,” said Davis.
They were able to get permission to tie up the barge at a dock owned by Silver Bay Seafoods, and Davis tied his personal boat to the barge to help get it off the beach and maneuver it to the dock. The winds were still strong, and that made operating his boat tricky.
“There’s a few times there, it was bobbing up and down rough enough I was a little concerned about it rolling over on me, but we were, you know, by the grace of God, able to pull that barge off the beach and get the front end around,” he said.
Davis said the wind picked up, slamming the barge against the fender pilings on the dock, breaking some in the process. The barge was successfully tied to the dock, where it now sits.
Ed Tagaban is the port operations supervisor with the Harbormaster’s Office, and was there to see the drifting barge. He said the entire situation was very lucky, and they avoided some bad outcomes.
“We were fortunate enough where it did not end up going down the Narrows in the wind and taking out channel markers or wiping out skiffs or whatever it might be along the beach,” said Tagaban. “So it was very fortunate that it landed in that spot.”
Tagaban said the barge is currently not a hazard to boaters and there was no fuel onboard.
KFSK attempted to reach the barge’s owner, but he is currently out of the country.
