On a recent photo foray down to Toronto's waterfront (aka the Port Lands), I noticed a major change as I crossed the rusty green bridge. The Algobay, a stationary fixture for years and what I assumed was destined to be a giant piece of marine junk, has vanished without a trace.

It took a bit of Google digging to find out what happened to the ship (and to rule out David Blaine and Criss Angel as suspects). In searching for its current whereabouts, I found out a lot of interesting facts about the ship's history when I stumbled upon a detailed summary on a boatnerd.com page.

Most notably, I learned that the Algobay is not marine junk. In fact, it's been moved to Hamilton for servicing and will once again sail the seas and move dirty stuff in the future.

A few really interesting tidbits about the Algobay:

- 22 hatches service cargo bays that can hold 30,200 tons of coal, 447 tons of fuel oil, 254 tons of diesel oil, 112 tons of potable water and 16,464 tons of water ballast.

- Within the first few months of its maiden voyage in 1978, the Algobay collided with an Italian ship, and in the process crushed and sank a tug boat (2 people died in the incident).

- In addition to servicing the Great Lakes, the ship also had changed ownership and had a stint as a trader in the Caribbean in the late 80's. During that time, the ship was credited with the rescuing of 2 people from a dinghy (brining her a clean slate in the killer/saver count).

- The ship was in Toronto for long-term "lay-up" from late 2002 to late 2007 (just short of 5 full years) and on November 28, 2007 was tugged to Hamilton.

- The Algobay was featured in a Crossroads Puzzle here on blogTO last year.

- After some major fixing, the ship is expected to return to service by late 2009.

Photo by Photosapience taken in February 2006.

More photos of the Algobay docked in Toronto are on Flickr.