Out of the past and into the future

Normally working buoys in a country where ice covers the waters for a good portion of the year entails getting them in position in the spring and removing them in the fall. However, sometimes they have problems and sometimes they just disappear.

We got a call the other day to replace a buoy in the Beauharnois Canal that had gone from station. As it was a new plastic buoy just deployed this year, I suspected it might have been sunk by a passing ship's propeller rather than its mooring chain failing.

We have a large home-made grappling hook in order to drag the bottom for sunken buoys and moorings. So, we took up station at the buoy position and drifted across the location with the hook scraping along the bottom. 

The first drag came up empty but on the second go we caught something.

Once we got the anchor on deck, we hooked on to the chain and raised up the remainder. Turns out we had caught a buoy but not the one we were looking for.

This was an older style steel buoy, which had obviously been at the bottom of the canal for a long time. Knowing the changes in lantern and battery technology, it was clear that this buoy had been under water for over twenty years! Pretty amazing considering the lantern was still attached and it didn't look much the worse for wear except for a buildup of growth.

With our surprise find on deck and out of the way, we tried another drag with our grappling hook. On the very next try we caught the buoy we were looking for.

Well, not much buoy actually left as the plastic body hadn't survived the propeller attack, the counterweights were gone, the plastic lantern had popped off the top portion and the top portion was cut up pretty good and full of water.

Not really the fault of the buoy, but I couldn't help thinking how the old technology buoy could be cleaned up and re-used while the new one was a write-off.

Another casualty to be added to the pile in our disposable world.