The fire-damaged container ship Zim Kingston has received the go-ahead from federal officials to move to a port in either Vancouver or Nanaimo, provided the weather is favourable and it complies with safety conditions.
The ship’s relocation won’t come quickly enough for Victoria-based Orca Book Publishers, which had 15,000 hardcover and paperback books onboard whose fate is unknown.
It’s possible they were in one of the 109 containers that tumbled overboard Oct. 22 when the vessel was in rough waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island. If the books are still on board, Orca fears they may not be fit for sale after a fire broke out in some of the nearly 2,000 containers left behind.
Even if the books survived the fire, it’s unlikely they will be uncrated in time for next month’s holiday season.
The “ship fire completely caught us off guard,” Orca marketing director Leslie Bootle said Friday. Orca has been facing supply-chain issues, a global challenge these days, and learned a week ago that its books were on the Zim Kingston.
It decided to re-order the five non-fiction children’s titles and will be receiving a small discount from the printer in China, Bootle said. “We’re hedging our bets that if indeed these shipping containers are recovered, the chances that [the books] are going to be sellable are low based on the incredible journey they’ve had.”
Many of the books were meant to fill back orders from buyers in Canada and the U.S., including bookstores, public libraries and schools.
Bootle said she’s heard it will take about a month to offload cargo and perhaps longer to find out the state of the containers’ contents.
It’s unlikely the new order will be filled before January, said Bootle, who did not know the status of insurance but said the printer and shipping company have been dealing with that issue.
She said Orca had already been increasing the number of books it prints in Canada and by next year, the majority will be produced in this country.
At the north end of Vancouver Island, two of four containers that have washed ashore have ruptured, spewing debris onto Sea Otter Cove and Shuttleworth Bight, the multi-agency command centre overseeing the Zim Kingston situation said Friday. The other 105 containers, including two carrying a hazardous substance used in the mining industry, are still missing.
Ship manager Danaos Shipping, which is based in Greece, could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
After losing its containers, the Zim Kingston moored at Constance Bank off Victoria, where it has been since Oct. 23, when a persistent fire broke out in some of its remaining containers. The fire has been extinguished.
The Malta-flagged ship had been on its way to Vancouver after leaving South Korea.
It’s now up to the ship’s master and a marine pilot to decide when to relocate the vessel, the unified command said.
The 260-metre-long ship will only be allowed to sail provided winds are below 25 knots and waves are less than two metres, it said. Salvage teams must be on board to watch over the nearly 2,000 remaining containers when the vessel leaves Constance Bank.
The Zim Kingston will be escorted by two tugboats, a Canadian Coast Guard emergency tow vessel and a U.S. Coast Guard vessel when it is in U.S. waters.
A marine-mammal watch vessel and an environmental monitoring vessel will also be part of the convoy.
The coast guard will manage vessel traffic in the area when the container ship is moved, and government environmental response personnel will be on standby.
On Friday, the federal government announced a one-year, $20-million contract extension to lease two B.C.-based emergency towing vessels. One of those, the Atlantic Raven, has been stationed next to the Zim Kingston to help respond to the emergency.
Matti Polychronis, spokesperson for the Port of Vancouver, said the port is in the process of working with the ship’s owner and other federal agencies to determine next steps, including whether the port authority will be called upon to accommodate the vessel.
If the Zim Kingston comes into the Vancouver port, it will have to adhere to safety and environmental protection procedures, she said.
Mike Davison, chief operating officer at the Port of Nanaimo, said the organization is reviewing the situation to determine if it can assist.
Meanwhile, cleanup continues despite poor weather at debris-littered remote beaches on Vancouver Island’s north coast where four containers are known to have reached shore.
A contractor has been hired by the shipping company for the cleanup, while additional experienced workers from local environmental groups are expected to join the effort this weekend.
Helicopters have been lifting out heavy cargo, including dozens of refrigerators that washed up on Cape Palmerston beaches.
At Raft Cove, where one container landed, 95 per cent of its contents has been collected and will be lifted out by helicopter.
