Some commercial fishers near Nanaimo found themselves with a bigger catch than they could handle on Wednesday: a B.C. ferry.
A ferry passenger captured cellphone video, which shows one vessel getting a brief tow from the ferry.
“Cut the net, cut the net!” someone can be heard saying off-camera, as the fishing net begins to grow taut between the ferry and the fishing boat.
The smaller vessel then gets pulled in the ferry’s wake for about 10 seconds before the line either snaps or someone aboard the fishing boat cuts it free.
BC Ferries says the Queen of Alberni hit the net just before 5 p.m. while travelling at six knots.
The net was submerged so the crew didn’t see it but they were able to reverse and free themselves from the net safely.
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It happened near the Duke Point ferry terminal, where Global BC viewer Tricia Bryant, who was aboard the ferry, said more than a dozen small fishing boats had blocked the larger vessel’s path.
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“We slowed down to dodge boats but this boat had a submerged net that the ferry driver couldn’t see and we ran over it,” Bryant said in a Facebook message.
“We had to stop twice in the water, once to free the net and then again to wait and move for fishing boats, and ended up sitting in the water for about half an hour outside Nanaimo.”
No one was injured in the incident.
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