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Penticton  

Storm shifts SS Sicamous

City workers and staff at the SS Sicamous spent a portion of their day resetting the historic ship after it was slightly displaced by Tuesday night's storm.

The storm, which battered the shores of Okanagan Lake, brought high winds from the north into the valley, sending waves crashing into the south end of the lake – including Penticton's historic SS Sicamous.

"The bow of the ship has moved toward the shoreline, and it pivoted on the walkway, so right now, we're trying to locate it, get it back into the right position," said SS Sicamous Society director Matt Verboeket. "If and when the water actually subsides, that the ship actually settles in the right location."

A crew of city and SS Sicamous workers was on hand working on that, including men who pulled at the back end of the boat by a rope and an excavator, which had been pushing on the front of the ship.

Verboeket says it's important for the ship to settle back down where it had come up from before it began to float last week.

"Otherwise it would interfere with the services that are on board," Verboeket said, noting that there aren't any major concerns with the boat having been displaced.

"The ship is watertight, which is a great thing, and just want to make sure that all the services stay connected properly."

With the SS Sicamous Society in early stages of building a wharf along the boat, there's a silver lining to the ship coming out of its place, according to Verboeket.

"With the ship rising the way it did, it's actually a good thing," he said. "If we would have had the dock built on the wharf prior to now, it would have been way out of whack."

The SS Naramata, which is expected to be patched up in a future project of the SS Sicamous Society, is seeing a bit of flooding, according to Verboeket, but no major issues have been noted.



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