After the cold and ice delayed snow crab fishing in Eastern Canada, it is now wreaking havoc on commercial fishing boats.
Several boasts are stuck off the coast of Newfoundland, and five fishermen were rescued this week from the Avalon Princess, which started to sink after getting stuck in thick ice near La Scie, Newfoundland, CTV News reported.
Three other vessels are trapped in ice off northeastern Newfoundland, as the Coast Guard has been unable to free trapped vessels with its icebreaker Amundsen.
“It's really dangerous for our icebreakers to go and operate around fishing vessels because we're pushing around these large pieces of ice that can cause damage," Trevor Hodgson, the Canadian Coast Guard's superintendent of ice operations for the Atlantic region, told CTV News. "It's a lot of heavier, boulder-like pieces of ice going towards the fishing vessels and it's just not safe.”
The ice is more than two meters thick in some areas, Hodgson said.
