Mersey Pride refit

Dominion Diving has started an out-of-the-water refit of the tug/workboat Mersey Pride. The former Liverpool/ Brooklyn, NS based boat was alongside for a time, but has now been lifted out on the shore.

 The tug's aluminum hull looks quite battered, but  it also appears quite sound for a boat built in 1987. It is also unusual to see a tug with a keel. As previously noted the boat was built by Georgetown Shipyard Inc (now East Isle) in Prince Edward Island as G.S.I. No.1 to its own account. However based on its underwater shape, it seems likely that it was laid down as a fishing boat, but the order was cancelled or defaulted, and the yard finished the boat to their own needs. This may explain why the Department of Transport's List of Shipping has always listed it as a fishing boat.

Mersey Pride also has an unusually high free board for a tug. Seen here in February before it was lifted out, it has another Dminion Diving workboat alongside, which is also a List of Shipping anomaly, Dominion Pursuit. Although it shows Halifax as its port of registry, it has never appeared in that esteemed reference, even under its original name, Louis Bérubé. It was built for the Department of Fisheries, acquired by Dominion Diving in 2004 and renamed in 2007.