Hanjin cargo ship docks in Vancouver after weeks of uncertainty

A container ship that was anchored near Prince Rupert since the end of August finally docked in Vancouver on Thursday.

The Scarlet is one of two Korean ships in Canadian waters that have been in limbo since Hanjin the world's seventh largest shipping line filed for bankruptcy.

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The other, the Vienna, is anchored near Victoria.

For the nearly 50 crew members aboard the two ships, waiting to discover when and how their journeys would end has been difficult.

Peter Lahay is the national coordinator for the International Transport Workers' Federation. He's been advocating on behalf of the crew and says conditions on board werebad, especially for the Scarlet.

"There are twoor threethings that go into a ship that'soperating correctly. One is they have adequate food and provisions and the other [is] water, recreation and something to do," he said.

"[Scarlet]was stuck at an anchorage at a very, very remote, isolated location on the Northern British Columbia coast all by themselves. They had no other vessels around them, nothing. All that they were looking at was trees and islands and whales going by."

"The captain didn't have any answers for the crew, his emails were going ignored by Hanjin," said Lahay.

Now that the ship has docked, some crew members are learning their fates, and morale is improving, according to Lahay.

"There's a lot of joy in the crew, particularly from those going home," he said."Ithink it's about 13 crew who are leaving the vessel and about a similar number will stay on board."

Roughly half the crew will have to stay with the boat for some time to come in order to maintain it but they will get paid. Theyalso gotthe chance to walk on land on Thursday for the first time since the ship left Asia.

The workers who get to go home willbe allowed off the boat at some time onFriday.

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