Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft grounded in B.C. due to crew shortages

A pair of highly specialized vessels that serve public safety on the West Coast have been grounded by a lack of staff.

A pair of Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft that serve the south coast of British Columbia are temporarily grounded due to staffing shortages at the marine safety and security agency.

A lack of qualified personnel at the coast guard’s Sea Island station in Richmond have left the air-cushioned vehicles without crews to operate them since last week, the agency confirmed to CTV News on Thursday.

“Hovercraft piloting requires officers be certified in the operation of air-cushioned vehicles,” coast guard spokesperson Anna Muselius said in an emailed statement Thursday.

“An unanticipated crewing shortage at the Canadian Coast Guard Sea Island Station has temporarily limited hovercraft operations since Friday, June 13.”

The two B.C.-based hovercraft, CCGS Moytel and CCGS Siyay, are commonly called upon for rapid, shallow-water responses at beaches and other areas that are otherwise inaccessible to rigid-hulled boats.

Open-source vessel-tracking websites showed both hovercraft parked on the shore at the Sea Island station Thursday morning.

The coast guard says search-and-rescue operations in the region are being maintained by fast-rescue inflatable boats while the hovercraft are out of service.

The agency says volunteers with the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue are also “at the ready and able to assist in the event of an emergency in the area.”

The coast guard did not have a timeline available for when the hovercraft would return to service.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Mi-Jung Lee.