Owner had wanted to run marijuana cruises
with the boat
It was once a fixture on Winnipeg's rivers,
but the Paddlewheel Princess is now about to be chopped up and sold for scrap.
The cruise ship, which for years carried 200
passengers per trip on lazy runs up and down Manitoba rivers, was damaged
beyond repair by fire in Selkirk earlier this year and the ship's current owner
hopes to recoup whatever profit he can from the boat by selling it for scrap.
"I have no choice, I mean, it's sitting
in federal waterways and it'd be a matter of time until the federal government
would come after me to get it out of there," said Philip Rowan, of his
decision to scrap the boat and sell it for parts.
Paddlewheel Princess riverboat catches fire
in suspicious blaze of 'epic proportions': Selkirk fire chief
Rowan, 63, says he's semi-retired and decided
to buy the boat for $190,000 last spring with the intention of running
"Bob Marley cruises" at night, where passengers would be able to
smoke marijuana while touring the city's river system.
"It's going to be legal … you'd have
every marijuana-freak in town on that thing," said Rowan of his plan.
"The only way you can make money on the thing is to have it out on the
river."
But that plan went up in smoke in May when a
fire tore through the boat while it was moored in Selkirk. Police eventually
charged four teens in connection to the blaze.
Rowan said the boat's previous owner, Steve
Hawchuk, had done a lot of the work needed to get the Paddlewheel Princess back
to its former glory, including adding a new engine, new propellers, and a new
drive shaft. Rowan figures he would have had to spend another $100,000 for new
paint and things like windows to get it back into the water for his pot-powered
river trips.
"There was nothing serious, mechanically
it was straight," he said.
Paddlewheel Princess blaze lit by 4 teens,
police say
Rowan had hoped to have the cruise ship back
in operation by this June or July and had cancelled his insurance for the
winter. He says he'd gone to get the boat reinsured three days before the fire,
but it was still uninsured when it went up in flames.
Rowan hopes to have the boat cut up and
scrapped in the next two weeks, but work has to be done to remove asbestos
before the demolition can start.
Rowan has had to hire an environmental
company to make sure the process is done safely, a septic company and a welding
crew to get the work done before a wrecking crew comes in to crush the pieces
that will finally be hauled into Winnipeg. Rowan hopes to have the work done by
the end of September.
Need a boat? Paddlewheel Princess riverboat
for sale — again
He estimates the total cost to demolish and
scrap the ship will be $50,000.
The Paddlewheel Princess was constructed in
1966, a year after Winnipegger Ray Senft built its sister ship, the Paddlewheel
Queen.
Source:
cbc Canada. 19 September 2017
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