Piece of ship wreck may be headed to Ottawa

Hope of bringing back a piece of an almost 150 year old ship marooned off the coast of Wales to the city it was named after might be sunk after the quoted price of excavating a piece of the ship from the sea jumped from about $450,000 to $150 million.

Built in Quebec City in 1860, the ship was named ‘City of Ottawa’ a place Queen Victoria had just declared the capital. The ship sailed the world before finally meeting its end in Rhyl, a coastal town in Wales, in a 1906 storm.

Historians are calling the ship a treasure and have tried fervently to save it. The call to preserve even a piece of the ship took on new urgency this year when reports surfaced that the restoration of the Welsh harbour, where the ship is stranded, might bury chances of bringing back a piece of this historic treasure.

Mike Bowyer, a Welsh marine archaeologist, had earlier quoted the cost of excavating the ship as $450,000. However a few weeks ago, Charles Barker, commercial head of Mary Rose Archaeological Services in Portsmouth put the excavation cost at around $150 million.

Eileen Marcil, a leading expert on ships built in Quebec in that era said the new $150 million quote to retrieve the ship is “absolute rubbish.” She said the ship marks an important era in Canadian history and she was more than happy to help with the call to reclaim the ship when she heard about it. The City of Ottawa is believed to be the only surviving ship built in Quebec from that period.  

Rainer Bloess, an Ottawa city councillor has advocated for a piece of the ship to be returned and displayed in the heritage wing of city hall, where the HMCS Ottawa is currently displayed. Time is running out though since the Rhyl town council has issued a clearance notice for the ship and plans to move forward with their harbour restoration plans in the next few weeks.

Bloess said he is not sure what will happen to the ship now. “At this stage, the status of the ship is as deeply mired in confusion just as the remnants are mired in the sand and mud of the Welsh port city of Rhyl,” he wrote in an e-mail.

However, both Bloess and Marcil said they remain optimistic that a piece of the ship will be brought back to Ottawa.

“I hope that Ottawa gets a piece of the ship. I think it’s nice, and they seem to know what they are doing over there, so hopefully it happens,” Marcil said.