Crane company, boat owners begin cleanup at island marina

Troy Conner was driving from Hilton Head Island to North Carolina on Monday when he got a call that his sailboat, docked at Palmetto Bay Marina, had been struck by a crane.

Conner said he turned around immediately and headed for home.

He'd been living full-time on Hilton Head on his boat Magic, Conner said. It was happenstance that he was out of town when the crane arm fell.

Cindy Holland, whose houseboat was sitting across the dock from Conner's, was inside on her couch when the arm fell across the two boats.

Holland and her dog weren't hurt. Neither was a crew of workers with Atlantic Marine Construction, which owns the crane and the barge it was sitting on.

There were some bruised feelings.

"I spent two years on this boat getting ready to take it to the (Florida) Keys," Conner said dejectedly.

At about midday Tuesday, Atlantic Marine employees used a blow torch to cut the fallen crane arm into pieces before a second crane lifted the parts off the two boats.

Conner wasn't hopeful.

"It's totaled, regardless," he said of Magic.

Representatives from Atlantic Marine were to meet with Conner on Tuesday to discuss the damage. The results of the meeting weren't known. Conner also said he was hiring an independent appraiser to examine his boat.

The collapse happened Monday around 1:15 p.m. as the crane was pulling up old pilings -- wooden poles that support docks.

According to Mitch Charles, the Beaufort-based company's general manager, the crane was tugging on a piling that had snapped off earlier. That meant an employee had to wrap a cable around the lower part of the piling under the water.

The cable either slipped off the bottom of the piling or the piling shattered, catapulting the arm of the crane backward and onto the boats, Charles said.

The U.S. Coast Guard stopped its investigation after it determined that the land-operated crane didn't fall within its jurisdiction.

Depending on the circumstances, state officials or agents with the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration investigate craneaccidents.