Boats swept away after heavy rain found along North Saskatchewan River days later

Boats and docks that were swept away on the North Saskatchewan River on Monday were found. CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson reports.

Two Edmonton organizations can breathe a sigh of relief after their boats and docks that were swept away in a deluge down the North Saskatchewan River were recovered.

“It was hard to believe,” said Troy McLeod, vice-president of the Edmonton Dragon Boat Racing Club.

Seven of the group’s 45-foot, 550-pound boats were swept away Monday night, along with their dock.

McLeod said the boats were anchored with three chains to heavy concrete blocks anchoring them from the ground.

“To have all three chains snap and then the dock shear off – hard to believe,” McLeod told CTV News Edmonton Wednesday.

Five of those boats and the dock have since been recovered by a local fishing charter that was filming a television show along the North Saskatchewan.

“They had a helicopter out and they sent us a location where the dragon boats were,” said Lunker’s Fishing Adventures’ owner Nick Porayko in an interview. “We fueled up the jet boats and we headed to them … when we found them, they were wrapped around a bridge pillar.”

Porayko said it was amazing what they were able to salvage considering how fast the water was moving.

“Normally our river runs at about 200 cubic metres a second … the day we left for the fishing show, it was at over 1,000 cubic metres per second,” said Porayko.

Porayko and his crew also found boats belonging to the Edmonton Rowing Club.

“The boats are still attached, but two of them are under the docks, the rest of them were full of water and all banged up from hidden logs,” he said.

So McLeod and the folks at the rowing club can’t fully relax yet, until they can determine the amount of damage caused.

“We do know there’s a little bit of damage on at least a couple of the dragon boats. Hopefully we can repair that damage and get them back in the water, but we don’t know the extent of it yet,” said McLeod, adding that a single new boat could cost tens-of-thousands-of-dollars.

On Wednesday afternoon Porayko was getting ready to go back out to look for the other boats belonging to the dragon boat club.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I hope if we were ever in a wreck on the river, someone would do the same thing for us.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson