An abandoned vessel that many people in Ladysmith referred to as a blight on their picturesque harbour was towed away on Thursday.
The Viki Lyne II has called the Ladysmith Harbour home since 2012.
On Thursday, a tug pulled the derelict vessel out of the harbour and took it to a shipyard in Nanaimo where it will be dismantled.
“This is a big step for this harbour, after a lot of community work,” said Sheila Malcolmson, MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith. “I’ll keep working with the federal government to develop a comprehensive abandoned vessel solution for our whole coast.”
Derelict vessels are an ongoing problem to coastal communities up and down Vancouver Island.
Ladysmith has the highest concentration of abandoned vessels in the country.
Malcolmson has proposed a regulatory solution that would give the Coast Guard more authority to deal with abandoned vessels.
The bill will be debated in Parliament next year.
