When Jason Burton lost his boat off the coast of Newfoundland last year, he thought he was gone forever. Little did he know that the 21-foot-long skiff would end up in the ocean off Vega, Norway. “Yeah, she’s been on quite a journey for herself,” Burton said in a recent interview. In late June 2021, Burton was towing the vessel, an Osprey 210, from its home port of Lumsden to Conception Bay for the capelin fishery. “It was a bit windy when we left, about 25 knots, but it wasn’t too bad,” he said. Barton and the other crew members on the longliner towing the smaller vessel watched it closely at first, but were less concerned when the wind dropped while they were crossing Trinity Bay. “We were like, ‘oh, it’s fine back there,’” he said. After about an hour, they checked the boat. He was gone. They searched, but saw no sign. The winds picked up and they could see white caps on the oceans. “Famously, Trinity Bay is for a southwesterly wind,” Burton said. “The wind picked up about 25 or 30 knots.” Ordinarily, Burton said, he would have placed a beacon on the boat to prevent it from getting lost — but that day it slipped his mind.
Across the Atlantic
Barton reported the missing boat to the Coast Guard. A few days later, he received a call and was told that the crew on a supply ship had found the vessel about 140 kilometers off Cape St. . The vessel had capsized and the supply vessel did not board it. “I just knew this was going to sink in,” Burton said. “It floats from the bottom up, but once it turns upright, the air will be blown out of it and gone.” Fourteen months later, a Norwegian NGO called In the Same Boat found an upside-down boat wedged against a rock off the coast of Vega Island. WATCH: Members of In the Same Boat capsize a Newfoundland vessel stuck on rocks off Norway The group, which collects plastic waste from the Norwegian coastline, posted photos of the vessel to Canadian Facebook groups, hoping they could find the owner. “We got a response from an owner in Newfoundland and it was just amazing to see how far this boat has come,” said Rold Hogset, a member of In the Same Boat. “We’ve never found anything this big from this far away before.” The group had to wait two days for high tide before moving it off the rock. Hogsett said the boat is still afloat. “It must be a very good and strong build,” he said.
A new life;
Hogsett said about 80 to 90 percent of the waste In the Same Boat finds comes from the fishing industry, but most of it comes from Norway and its closest neighbors. The exception is smaller plastics, such as bottles, which come from all over the world. In the Same Boat used the information on the side of the boat to find its origin. Hogsett said the boat is still afloat, although it needs repairs. (In the same boat/Facebook) He said that if the organization had not found the boat, it would have eventually broken down and turned into microplastics. He said history shows the far-reaching impact of ocean waste. “This is just one boat and we think about the large amounts of large objects and small things floating around the ocean. It’s quite scary,” he said. He said the organization plans to repair the boat, but it will not return to Newfoundland and Labrador. Barton, who has already bought another boat, said he’s fine with it. “If there was someone out there who could bring her back to life, I would be very, very proud to see her back to life,” he said. “But if not, I guess she’ll go to the destroyer and see the end of her days.” Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
