Runaway barge wrangled from hitting Vancouver’s English Bay Beach

Vancouverites thought they were experiencing déjà vu Sunday afternoon as a runaway barge floated in waters off the West End on Sunday.

The barge had broken free of its mooring buoy in English Bay and was drifting towards English Bay Beach.

0:46 Removal of English Bay barge begins in earnest

Last year a barge was stuck for nine months at Sunset Beach, just a short walk away, after it broke free during devastating storms in November 2021.

According to the Canadian Coast Guard, Sunday’s barge broke free around 12:10 p.m.

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Two Coast Guard crews and vessels from the Kitsilano base quickly responded to the incident and were able to tie onto the barge, which prevented it from running aground.

The two vessels battled against the current for around 30 minutes until a commercial tugboat arrived.

The barge has now been secured to a different mooring buoy in Vancouver Harbour.

2:08 Chilling no more. Vancouver’s ‘Barge on the Beach’ nearly gone