Grads navigate wet sand in formal wear after Pride of Vancouver runs aground at Maplewood Flats
A boatload of celebrating North Vancouver grad students had their festivities cut short Friday evening after their party boat ran aground on Maplewood Flats.
Students from Sutherland Secondary who were on what was intended to be a three-hour cruise ended their night of celebrating with a ride across Burrard Inlet on a Coast Guard hovercraft after their boat the Pride of Vancouver got stuck on a sand bar at the flats around 9 p.m.
The cruise, organized by parents of the graduating class, had left Coal Harbour earlier in the evening but ran aground on the mud flats on the return leg of the journey, about one kilometre east of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.
Nobody was hurt in the incident and the vessel wasn’t taking on water. However, the Coast Guard was called in to help get students off the stranded vessel and back to shore.
The Coast Guard hovercraft Siyay, which can operate safely in very shallow water, was dispatched to get the students back to the Harbour Green dock in Coal Harbour where they were met by their parents.
“No one got hurt and the kids had a boat ride they likely won’t ever forget,” the Coast Guard auxiliary’s RCM-SAR unit 2 posted on its Facebook page.
Students put lifejackets on over their formal wear and had to walk across the wet sand between the party boat and the hovercraft.
So far it’s not clear why the party boat ran aground.
“It was very calm weather,” said Sieneke Toering, a member of the Coast Guard auxiliary’s RCM-SAR unit 2, based on the North Shore, who was aboard the auxiliary Coast Guard vessel on Friday night. The tide was going out at the time, she added. “It obviously happens twice a day.”
Toering added it’s important for all vessels heading out on the water to “check the charts and check the tides.”
The captain and crew of the party boat remained on board and got the vessel off the mudflats on the high tide.
A man at Vancouver Charters who refused to give his name said nobody was ever unsafe in the grounding. He added the company would not be commenting until all investigations into the incident are complete.