A 689-foot bulk carrier made it to port Saturday evening after taking on water in a remote section of Lake Superior.
Half of the 22-person crew of the Michipicoten, a Canadian-flagged ship that was traveling from Two Harbors, Minn. to Thunder Bay, Ontario carrying 16 long tons of taconite, was evacuated shortly after 7 a.m. Saturday with help from the National Park Service on Isle Royale. No injuries were reported.
The vessel was listing by 15 degrees when the distress call was first made. Pumps kicked in and were able to throw lake water overboard as it entered the vessel, reducing the tilt to 5 degrees. The ship made it to port under its own power, and was followed by the Edwin H. Gott and various U.S. Coast Guard vessels and aircraft.
Coast Guard officials originally reported that a submerged object 35 miles off the coast of Isle Royale likely struck the vessel, but Lt. Joseph Snyder, a public affairs officer with the Coast Guard, said the cause of the accident is unknown.
"The assumption is that there was some kind of exterior damage, crack to the ship that was allowing lake water to enter,” Snyder said. "And after we got some more clarification on details, we cannot say that definitively that that's what happened. It could have been something else. That is going to be some of the first questions that are being asked."
According to Marine Traffic, a database that tracks shipping traffic across the globe, the Michipicoten safely arrived in Thunder Bay at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Officials from Transport Canada and the U.S. Coast Guard have launched a joint investigation to determine what caused the breach on the 72-year-old ship.
Rand Logistics, the company that owns the freighter, did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
