Runaway trawlers slam into Harbour Bridge

Oct 02, 2012 News

– Damage minimal

Two fishing trawlers ran into Demerara Harbour Bridge at around mid-afternoon yesterday after a strong tide detached them from their moorings at a Georgetown wharf. One of the vessels damaged the rail of the pedestrian walkway located on the northern side of the structure.

The trawler in the foreground ‘Capt. Kevin’ was used in the effort to retrieve the runaway vessels in the background, ‘Noble Sun’ and ‘Lady Sue’

Kaieteur News understands that two trawlers, “Lady Sue” and “Noble Sun” drifted downstream from a nearby wharf and there was pandemonium among commuters who were at the time traveling atop the floating bridge when one of the vessels (Lady Sue) made solid contact with it.
The episode prompted a brief halt to vehicular traffic utilising the bridge. The estimated cost of the accident is unknown, but the bridge corporation’s management has described the damage as minimal.
A man who would only identify himself as “Buddy” told this newspaper that maintenance works were being undertaken on boats at a Georgetown wharf when two (Lady Sue and Noble Sun) broke away due to the force of the tide and drifted away towards the Harbour Bridge.
“These two boats cut away from the wharf, I don’t know what went wrong wid de rope but the tide was real strong and it buss away.”
The man explained that the maintenance workers climbed aboard another vessel (Capt. Kevin) in an attempt to prevent the collision but were unsuccessful in controlling “Lady Sue” since the vessel had already drifted some distance away and crashed into the structure head-on.
However, he said that the rescue operators managed to prevent the other boat from doing more damage to the bridge.
A little over two months ago, a section of the Demerara Harbour Bridge collapsed, after two temporary pontoons located at the western end of the bridge sank. The pontoons were facilitating maintenance