THUNDER BAY — Mayor Bill Mauro wants to know what led up to the sinking of the James Whalen.
The historic city-owned tugboat sank at its mooring at the Kam River Heritage Park on Sunday.
It's just over a year since the 117-year-old vessel barely escaped the same fate when it took on more than 33,000 litres of water.
"Disappointing, for sure, especially given that it happened one year ago," Mauro said Monday.
"I'm reaching out to administration. I've already asked them to bring something to council tonight that will explain what has happened and how we got here, and what we can do to prevent this from happening again."
The mayor said he understands why people in the community would be upset, but added that he's been told the boat can be salvaged.
Mauro said he's brought resolutions to council in the past trying to facilitate the relocation of the James Whalen to the Lakehead Transportation Museum Society's property at the former Pool 6 site south of Prince Arthur's Landing.
For various reasons, that hasn't been practical so far.
LTMS representatives met just last month with the city's waterfront development committee to initiate new discussions.
Society president Charlie Brown said while it's unfortunate the tugboat is "now a submarine," its sinking won't necessarily have caused much more damage than it already had.
"I don't think there's any actual hull damage yet. We won't know that until it's refloated. The interior was damaged for a number of years anyway by vandalism. We would have had to gut the interior anyway."
Brown added "If it gets refloated and we can bring it over, we can probably deal with those things over time."
The LTMS is currently looking at putting the James Whalen in front of the Alexander Henry, which would require some dredging.
"We're going to let the city assess what they need to do with it right now. Then we're more than happy to sit down with the city to see if we can come up with some kind of solution," Brown said.
