A former Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft that has performed thousands of search and rescue operations on the B.C. coast is about to start a new life in the Maritimes.
The Penac has attracted attention from passersby since it settled down on Departure Bay Beach in Nanaimo on the weekend.
The craft is being prepared for a journey to New Brunswick by its new owners Gino Leblanc and Theo Gene Albert. They own and operate Northeast Diving Ltd., based in Caraquet, N.B., a business that specializes in underwater construction and repair work and contracts to Public Works and Government Services Canada. The Penac will be on its way once it is picked up by a cargo ship and transported to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
“The craft will be unloaded there and we’ll take it over from there and sail it up the Atlantic on its own power, all the way up the east coast of the United States,” Leblanc said. “It’s approximately 3,500 kilometres, so I don’t think it’s been achieved before. Not with a hovercraft.”
Paul Tobin, acting commanding officer of the Canadian Coast Guard’s Sea Island hovercraft base, is acting as a consultant on the craft’s preparations. He said the Penac, decommissioned in 2017, has been up for sale since, but without a buyer until now, largely because of the expense of converting it over to civilian use, moving it and bringing it back up to full serviceability.
“We ran it from 2004 to 2017,” Tobin said. “It’s probably done about 10,000 rescues … We’re glad to see that it’s repurposed and it’s going to go to a good home and it’s going to have something to do. There’s still lots of life in the machine. It’s in very good condition.”
The Penac was built by the British Hovercraft Corporation and started life in 1984 as the Liv Viking, ferrying up to 86 passengers at a time on 35-minute crossings of the Öresund Strait between Malmö, Sweden, and Copenhagen Airport, Denmark, for Scandinavian Airlines. The hovercraft service ran until 1994 when catamaran ferries took over. A bridge now crosses the strait.
The Liv Viking was purchased by Canada in 2004, refitted for search-and-rescue use and rechristened Penac, a Coast Salish word meaning ‘fair winds.’
Leblanc said the Penac – the company is keeping the name – can fill a number of roles, including dive support work because the craft is already configured to support that sort of operation.
“We would like to have it work,” he said. “It will be really interesting and a really good challenge … it will be a nice working vessel for underwater jobs.”
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chris.bush@nanaimobulletin.com
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