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Officials optimistically assumed the ship could be ready for service after a simple two-year, $1.7-million retrofit. Instead, it would take five years and more than $11-million to make the vessel seaworthy.

Even then, the ship was notoriously prone to breakdown.

The Nonia’s steering gave out in 2007. Three years later, an onboard fire took out the ship’s electrical system, briefly leaving it adrift at sea. That same year, the ship needed a six-figure “emergency refit” after sustaining ice damage off the province’s northeast coast.

As the Nonia often worked to replace other ships that had broken down, these breakdowns sometimes had the effect of stranding remote communities.

The beleaguered ship’s death knell would not come until July of 2012, however. After being drydocked for a routine retrofit, Transport Canada inspectors identified more than $9-million in repairs needed before the ship could safely be allowed back into the stormy North Atlantic.

It was then, according to former transportation minister Paul Davis, that the government decided not to “waste any more money on it.”

Speaking to the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly in March, Mr. Davis said “when I made [the] decision … to decommission the Nonia, I was quite pleased when I had the chance to say, ‘nice knowing you.’”

The verdict wasn’t finalized until another $3-million had been ploughed into the soon-to-be-scrapped ship, according to Newfoundland media reports.