Riverboat stranded on sandbar during engine test

The Edmonton Riverboat hit a sandbar Tuesday during a mechanical test on the North Saskatchewan River — but not because the engines failed. The repaired motors passed their test without issue. The problem was water.

"During testing, we attempted our normal turnaround near the Accidental Beach. The increased water in the river has moved where we expected sandbars to be and the riverboat is resting on a sandbar now," owner Eric Warnke said.

Service boats were called to pull the vessel free. The stranding comes less than a month after the Edmonton Queen faced a different crisis: mechanical failure during a Mother's Day cruise in May left roughly 200 passengers stranded for three-and-a-half hours when the port hydraulic pump failed. That incident forced the operators into a full engine overhaul — the test that went sideways Tuesday.

Warnke's statement made clear the test itself was productive: the engines work. The river, swollen with spring runoff, simply changed the geography the crew was expecting. No passengers were aboard during Tuesday's test.