Coast Guard Sector Juneau responders went to the scene of a sunken tug boat in Gastineau Channel on Sunday and deployed oil containment boom around the vessel that had sunk the day before, the Coast Guard reports.

On Saturday, the 96-foot tug Challenger sunk in the channel while at anchor there according to reports. The cause of the sinking is still under investigation. The World War II tug, originally designated as the TP-126, has been at anchor at that location since late 2014.

Built in Wilmington, California for the U.S. Army, it was decommissioned two years later in 1946 and sold to a buyer in Vancouver. It plied the waters of Washington and British Columbia until the mid-80s before being sold and used as a floating bed and breakfast on Lake Union. The tug came back to Alaska in 2002, where efforts were made to restore it before it was sold yet again in 2014 to R.D. Robinson.

Watchstanders at the Juneau command center received a report of the sinking on Saturday afternoon and immediately began broadcasting a notice to all mariners warning of the hazard in the channel.

The Coast Guard reported that “Sector Juneau response personnel opened the pollution response fund to manage the case federally.”

“Our priority is to minimize the environmental impact of the sinking while we work to establish ownership and plan for salvage,” said Lt. Mickey Sanders, chief of incident management, Sector Juneau. “Our responders are working with local contractors to safely remove this hazard to navigation from Gastineau Channel.”

400 foot of oil containment boom was deployed and monitoring for further signs of pollution is continuing. Thus far, pollution has been minimal and the amounts are reported to be unrecoverable. 

Southeast Alaska Lighterage and Global Diving have been contracted to evaluate removing pollution sources on the tug on Monday.

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  Alaska, challenger, Coast Guard, gastineau channel, juneau, salvage, sinking, tug, vancouver, wwII