Cargo Ship Runs Aground in St. Lawrence Seaway

The German general cargo ship BBC Maple Lea ran aground in the St. Lawrence Seaway near Montreal, Quebec, and was refloated with tug assistance at about noon local time on Friday.

Media reports suggest that she grounded on rock and suffered some amount of damage. The indigenous Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, with tribal interests in the incident area, said that the ship's bow thruster was damaged in the grounding and that the she was leaking a minor quantity of hydraulic oil.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has sent a team to investigate the incident. Absorbent booms were deployed to contain any possible contamination.

As of Friday, AIS data show the Maple Lea at dock near Sainte-Catherine, across the Seaway from Montreal.

The 13,000 dwt Maple Lea is owned by Auerbach Schifffahrt and chartered by BBC Chartering. Her AIS suggests that she was under way for Ghent, and media reported that she was carrying a cargo of scrap at the time of the incident.

BBC Maple Lea was involved in another incident in 2013 in which she lost power off the coast of Cape Breton and threatened to drift aground. The Canadian Coast Guard came to her assistance when she became stuck in ice during a commercial tow response. While conducting icebreaking operations around the Maple Lea, Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent made contact, resulting in hull damage to both vessels.