33' Donzi Recovered off Boca Raton
A sportfishing boat that was fishing the Gulfstream waters off Boca Raton one afternoon in late November came upon a capsized vessel. After it was relatively apparent that there were no people in the water, the master of the sportfishing boat contacted the U.S. Coast Guard to report his findings. TowBoatU.S. Ft. Lauderdale mobilized one of their fast response rigid hulled inflatable boats that was underway near Hillsboro Inlet and arrived on scene in less than 30 minutes. Captain John Farr secured a tow line to the bow eye of the vessel, stemmed the current and eased the partially submerged vessel toward shore. Shortly thereafter, one of TowBoatU.S. Ft. Lauderdale's twin diesel tugs with two captains on board arrived to assist in refloating and dewatering the vessel. The casualty was a 2002 Donzi Center Console with twin 300 HP Mercury Engines. Aside from the salt damage and some minor damage to the hull, the boat was still in very good condition. TowBoatU.S. and the U.S. Coast Guard were unable to locate any people in the waters surrounding the vessel and the cause of the incident is under investigation.
The boat was towed to a boat ramp in Pompano Beach where the company's fleet operations supervisor, Jeff Hamilton was waiting to load the boat on a trailer and go to work. Jeff commented "We transport salvaged boats that are up to about 35 feet in length to our warehouse on one of the company's three heavy duty trailers where we sometimes work through the night to insure that the boat gets washed down promptly and thoroughly. We also flush and pickle the motors right away because so much of the boats value is in the motors...In many cases we have them running within a few hours!" Jeff continues "Our large warehouse with an oversized garage doors and fenced yard allow us to store these small to mid sized vessels as well, which is a convenient and more cost effective alternative to other storage options." Over the last 20 years, the full time fleet Operations staff at TowBoatU.S Ft. Lauderdale has worked on hundreds of salvaged vessels in an effort to preserve as much value as possible for owners and insurance company's alike. Log on to the facilities page of our website at www.towboatusftlauderdale.com to learn more about the facility and the equipment it houses.
TowBoatU.S. Ft. Lauderdale has always taken pride in providing prompt, professional towing and salvage services since the company was founded in 1989. Contact TowBoatU.S. Ft Lauderdale for more information.
