Coast Guard crews were quick to get out to a barge on Tuesday afternoon.
A Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed with V.I.A. a call came in around 2:30 p.m. of a 200-foot barge drifting near Sunset Beach.
A live stream of English Bay shows a barge drifting towards the shore.
As it got close to the shoreline formerly known as "Barge Chilling Beach," the footage shows Coast Guard crews wrangling the wayward barge and keeping it away from the water's edge.
"Two crews from our Kitsilano base were on scene within minutes to tie onto the barge to hold it in position, and off of the beach, while they awaited commercial tugs," states the spokesperson in an email to V.I.A.
Other vessels were able to join in, including a tug boat that arrived around 3:10 p.m. The little fleet was able to hail the barge to deeper waters, aided by another tugboat that arrived a couple of minutes later.
"Two Seaspan tugs, Cates 1 and Cates 4, arrived on scene around 3:15 p.m., took over the tow from Coast Guard and the VFPA (Vancouver Fraser Port Authority)," states the spokesperson. "They then resecured the barge."
In the footage, the barge appears mostly empty, but there was a piece of heavy equipment in the middle of the deck.
The Coast Guard is not aware of how the barge became unmoored.
It's not the first time a barge has almost ended up on the beach there.
