Treasure Island Sunken Boat Mystery Solved by Coast Guard
Have you seen this? Last week we received an email from Latitude reader Craig Russell about a sunken boat off Treasure Island. Craig wrote, “Spotted this sunken boat on northeast corner of Treasure. Been there about six weeks. Do you have any info?”
We then set about finding more information about the who, why, and how of the situation. The first and most successful thing we did was reach out to the US Coast Guard to see if they were aware of the sunken vessel and had any information. Jackpot!
Douglas Samp, USCG Search and Rescue Program Manager based in Alameda, told us the story.
“The operator had been moving from marina to anchorage area to marina, when the S/V went aground. USCG Sector San Francisco opened the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF) on 12 Dec 2022 and a contractor removed 50 gallons of product from the vessel. The Port of San Francisco requested Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) to remove the vessel. ACOE intended to remove the vessel in January, then the storms arrived. The vessel waits for removal as the ACOE are removing more priority hazards along the navigation channels caused by the storms and run off.”
We know the Army Corps of Engineers has been busy; we see them on the Bay nearly every day, still cleaning up after January’s storms. So it’s not surprising there’s a backlog of debris to deal with.
Despite the obvious sadness of yet another sunken boat, someone found a way to make light of the situation. Douglas Samp also forwarded us a posting he had found on Craigslist.
Saw the sailboat during 3BF and was keen to hear the story – thank you!
The puzzling things are that: a) the sails were unfurled, or ready to unfurl – why didn’t the operator, ahem, sail away from TI? b) Surely a quick call to TowBoatUS would have prevented the grounding, sinking and consequent expensive retrieval.
Finally, did the operator simply vanish?
An anchor is another way to keep your boat from going aground when propulsion systems fail. I consider them to be the #1 safety item onboard.
A fool and his money are soon parted company !
a sail-powered submarine?
*50* gallons of fuel removed? How big is this boat?
When it was still floating it looked to be 35 -38 feet.
The boat is still there, is there no one to remove it?
And its STILL there!