Anchor on B.C. ferry drops in Strait of Georgia, delaying passengers

An anchor let go unexpectedly on a BC Ferries vessel Friday, delaying passengers for about 90 minutes as crews fixed the problem.

The Spirit of British Columbia had just left Active Pass towards Tsawwassen when there was a loud noise and the ferry came to a stop.

“There was an inadvertent release of one of the vessel’s anchors. There was no danger to the vessel or the passengers on board, but it did take some time for the crew to retrieve the anchor,” explained Deborah Marshall, who speaks for BC Ferries.

There’s still no word on what caused the anchor to drop unexpectedly.

“We will be investigating that so that we can have some learnings from that.”

Canadian Press reporter Dirk Meissner was on the ship when the anchor was released, saying its tire-size chain links shook the ship as the item sank to the bottom.

He says the vibration of the anchor chain rolling off the ship was so strong that he thought the front windows might break.

In a tweet, Meissner also noted that the head of the BC Ferries board, Joy MacPhail, was aboard the ship when the anchor dropped.

Anchors away on BC Ferries. On ferry today when the huge anchor with the massive chain links broke free and left us stuck in ocean. Filed stories and snapped some pics of Joy MacPhail, head of BC Ferries board, who also happened to be on board for voyage pic.twitter.com/CII5sO2jJL

— Dirk Meissner (@CPMeissner) December 3, 2022

About an hour after the problem began, BC Ferries chief steward Tim Armstrong told passengers the problem had been fixed.

While he didn’t say what went wrong with the equipment, Armstrong apologized for the inconvenience and thanked them for their patience.

The 3 p.m. sailing from Tsawwassen and the 5 p.m. from Swartz Bay were both cancelled due to the delays caused by the anchor issue.

Marshall says the Spirit of British Columbia is not being removed from service, adding it was going to sail again Friday night.