2022-06-15

Summer is here and with it, the busiest maritime season on Canada’s waters! Commercial ships of all sizes navigate side-by-side with pleasure craft.  So, what is the summer impact on our portfolio of incidents?

Looking at the historical data, in the past 32 years we notice only a slight variation between seasons. Over 1 in 4 incidents in our portfolio occurred during the summer months. The month of August saw the highest number, representing almost 11% of all ship-source oil pollution incidents resulting in claims (see the graph below).

Incidents Occurrence by Month and Season:

Summer is also the season of big contrasts. It’s the same in our portfolio. For incidents that occurred in the month of August, we received claims for the third biggest amount and the smallest amount. Here’s a little background on both:

Ship name (year) and location	Amount claimed	Summary
Crown Forest 84-12 (2007) Northeastern end of Vancouver Island, BC	$2,707,477	claim submitted by the Ministry of the Environment of British Columbia barge listed while being towed by a tug, resulting in a substantial oil sheen, 14 kilometres long and 500 metres wide we offered over $191,000 for most of the costs and expenses in the initial oil spill response and diving operation
Skaubryn Mystery Spill – Georgie Girl Claim (2000) Vancouver Harbour, BC	$218	claim submitted by the owner of the Georgie Girl yacht Georgie Girl was contaminated by a spill caused by an unidentified vessel we paid the claim in full, to cover the cleaning of the hull and fenders of the Georgie Girl and replacement costs involved

Would you like to read more about these two incidents or any other ones? Have a look at our latest edition of the Incident Summaries compilation at: https://sopf.gc.ca/?page_id=11715.