Derelict Boat Salvaged in North Miami

TowBoatU.S. Ft. Lauderdale's salvage team worked to remove an eyesore from an upscale North Miami neighborhood in Late November. The city of North Miami awarded the salvage of a 48' power boat to TowBoatU.S. Ft. Lauderdale after the abandoned vessel sat sunk at a dock in the Sans Souci sub division for several weeks. Salvage Master Chris Stevens devised a plan to refloat the vessel using four 6000 pound lift bags; patching holes in the fiberglass over wood hull, and pumping the boat out using several gas powered dewatering pumps. Once afloat the weather beaten, barnacle covered remains would be towed to a site in Haulover where the crane would lift the casualty from the water and an excavator would remove the engines and fuel tank prior to final disposal. "Everything was working according to plan" stated Stevens "right up until the point when the stringers and keel fractured and the cockpit was severed from the rest of the hull." The salvage team did a masterful job of regrouping and devised an efficient plan for the disposal of the remaining wreckage. The fuel tank and engines were picked up by a scrap yard and the rest of the hull was crushed and packed into two 40 yard dumpsters.

"Our company has salvaged vessels ranging from Megayachts to jet skis and everything in between including several airplanes," recalls Larry Acheson, President of TowBoatU.S. Ft. Lauderdale "but every once in a while a job comes along that will be remembered by our entire team for many years due to its unusual nature and challenging circumstances. This one joins the ranks of the steel dredge that we salvaged from the bottom of a 20' deep fresh water lake in West Palm Beach as one of those jobs" In the end, the waterways are a little bit nicer due to the disposal of one of the many derelict vessels that exist throughout South Florida.