Commencement Baykeeper and the Sunken Vessel WN 9127 NN (RIP)
I had quite a wild morning recently chasing a missing vessel.
I was out on my boat with a Washington state environmental officer to check on a derelict boat, but all we found was the line used to tie it up hanging in the water. I’d been monitoring this vessel since a local marina was busted for scuttling derelict vessels and, based on a citizen tip, I had warned State officials and the Coast Guard that this boat would sink with fuel on board after the first good storm. Which it did.
The water was about nine feet deep and we couldn’t see any sign of the boat. We were waiting for the tide to go out when I got a call on my cell phone from the Coast Guard, who doesn’t have a boat here in Tacoma, but had driven down from Seattle to “respond.”
“Guess what I found?” he asked. The boat was wedged under the back of a barge at the Army Pier about a quarter-mile away. Just the front two or three feet of bow was showing. It looked like an Orca poking its head out of the water.
Climbing onto the barge to get a better look the Coast Guard and state officials saw evidence of a fuel spill – making the sunken boat an environmental hazard. But then we saw it start to move with the tide back towards where it originally sank. There wasn’t much to do but laugh. It was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen on the water in a while.
Now it’s a “navigation hazard” and The Coast Guard rolled into action, ordering a boat and dive/recovery team. By nightfall, an Army Corps of Engineers vessel had plucked the boat from the Bay.
