KETCHIKAN — Officials with the City of Ketchikan will have a better idea of how badly a Celebrity Cruises ship damaged Berth 3 after meeting with the engineers who inspected the structure on Monday.
The Celebrity Infinity, when attempting to dock just before 2 p.m. Friday, scraped along part of the berth, causing one of the gangways to break off and puncture the ship’s hull above the water line. The berth currently is unusable.
Ketchikan Port and Harbors Director Steve Corporon said Sunday evening that city officials will meet with the engineers to go over their assessment on Monday.
The Celebrity Infinity is a 965-foot, 91,000-ton ship that can hold 2,170 passengers, according to the company’s website.
Celebrity Cruises spokesman Owen Torres, in a Friday news release, said the ship struck the berth due to inclement weather, that the ship sustained scraping damage above the waterline and that there were no injuries on board.
There were wind gusts of more than 40 mph Friday afternoon according to the National Weather Service’s weather monitoring station at the Ketchikan International Airport.
The Infinity left Ketchikan around midnight Friday and continued on its course to Vancouver.
Until Berth 3 is repaired, the port will have to go back to a pre-2007 style of operations, when there were only two berths, according to Corporon.
“The simple answer is that we’re going to have to have them anchor out and tender (passengers) in,” Corporon said on Friday. “Back (pre-2007), there was a lot of tendering.”
Ships will still be able to use berths 1, 2 and 4.
The Island Princess was scheduled to dock at Berth 3 at 10 a.m. Monday.
• This article first appeared in the Ketchikan Daily News.
