A boat moored in Wiscasset sank last week, but the owner’s use of some Yankee ingenuity helped retrieve it to meet the harbormaster’s deadline Friday.
Chad Strater discovered his 1946 Chesapeake Bay cruiser built by Willis Brothers partially sank last Monday in the harbor leaving only a bit of the bow and cabin visible.
“I’m not really sure what caused it,” he said.
A U.S. Coast Guard patrol discovered the sunken boat on Monday morning, and Strater said he received word from the Coast Guard about it after he returned to his residence in Georgetown after having seen it for himself.
Getting the boat to the shore posed a challenge to young Strater, who said he has never had that happen before.
Time was of the essence since the boat at its mooring posed a hazard on the river so Wiscasset harbormaster Peter Dalton said he gave Strater a time limit, with the idea he would have to charge him if the town had to remove it.
“It would cost a lot if we had to do it,” Dalton said. “I didn’t want to let it get to the bottom. I was happy he took care of it and nobody got hurt. It’s an antique, and it’s got a lot of character.”
Fortunately for Strater, he brainstormed for a way to raise the boat and bring it the shore where it is currently tied to a float wormers and clammers currently use at Memorial Pier.
“I have a lot of friends on the water,” he said. “Either I was going to do it or I wasn’t.”
Strater said he got all kinds of ideas from some of his friends like putting enough ping pong balls into the hull to make it float, but the idea he went with was to fasten inner tubes for tractor trailer tires to the hull with nets and lobstering rope. He also had to hire a diver to go inside the hull to accomplish the underwater part of the task.
Friday was not the best day to get involved in such a project because of the weather, but Strater, the diver and a couple of his friends worked on getting the boat out of the water a good part of the day.
“He was out there on a really nasty day,” Dalton said.
On Tuesday Strater was at the waterfront looking over the boat with a friend who is an expert with diesel engines to see if the motor can be salvaged. Fortunately for him, he found no leaks and no major damage.
Strater has owned the boat for six years, which he found out about from Uncle Henry’s.
Now he has to have the boat hauled away from waterfront soon, Dalton said.