A lightning strike and hull corrosion on the tugboat Powerful have ended up costing Government more than $1m in unexpected repairs.

A mandatory Lloyd’s Register of Shipping out-of-water survey of the tug should have cost somewhere around $300,000, according to a Marine and Ports source, but has ended up costing $1.5m, Government has confirmed.

The extensive, expensive repairs were undertaken after an independent surveyor found “unacceptable levels” of hull corrosion in “key areas”. The repairs, cited a Ministry of Transport spokesman, “were required to ensure that the tug remains fit to perform her hazardous duties assisting ships in port and during occasional tow operations at sea around Bermuda.”

“The degree of hull corrosion in critical areas surveyed — behind her forward fenders, anchor pipes in the bow and a seawater suction point in the bottom of the hull — required cutting and welding of her steel hull to an extent not previously anticipated. Such work was driven by an independent surveyor’s hull thickness testing, once the tug was out of the water in dry dock.

“Essentially once we started the survey work, there was no turning back if we wanted the tug returned to the water and to maintain the Lloyd’s classification.”

Additional costs were incurred just days before Powerful was due to return to Bermuda from Jacksonville, Florida, after a lightning strike forced further repairs to be completed before she could be taken to sea safely.

Built in the UK, Powerful arrived in Bermuda in 1988, but “only minor hull and repainting work has ever been undertaken” since.

After leaving for Jacksonville earlier this summer for the repairs, Powerful returned to Bermuda on September 25.

While she is now certified as seaworthy, Powerful has yet to return to service and is still berthed in Dockyard, where she is undergoing further repairs to the interior which Marine and Ports “consciously elected not to complete overseas — but rather, to undertake in Bermuda where [they] believed sufficient competency existed.”