Shrimp boat goes down in Battery Creek in Port Royal. ‘It’s a danger,’ town says
An old shrimp boat has sunk while anchored in Battery Creek near the city-owned dock in Port Royal, which is in the process of evicting boats, many of them in disrepair, in order to build a new dock.
The Josie N had been tied to the Port Royal dock, but recently it was moved and anchored about 100 yards out in a channel.
“It must have gone down overnight,” Van Willis, Port Royal’s town manager, said early Friday afternoon.
The owner, he said, was on his way to the location with another shrimper to bring it back up and “drag it out of here.”
The boat must be marked so it is not struck by any boat traffic, Willis said.
“It’s a danger if it’s in the channel,” Willis said. “Particularly if you are coming through at night. And you won’t be able to see it at high tide, so it’s a hazard.”
Nobody was on board at the time.
The sinking of the boat comes as Port Royal moves ahead with a plan to demolish the town-owned dock, build a new one, and, eventually, partner with a third party to build and run a facility that would process seafood caught by the owners of working shrimp boats.
The town’s effort to restore one of the few publicly owned commercial fishing docks remaining in South Carolina, with the help of almost $1 million from the state, is occurring as Safe Harbor Marinas begins its initial work in a major redevelopment that will transform the town’s waterfront.
Earlier this year, the town gave owners of the old boats tied up at the dock until April 15 to move their vessels so it could get on with building the new dock. A few of the boats were purchased, and a few were moved and anchored off the dock. Just two remain — a shrimp boat and a derelict sailboat that somebody recently tied to the dock, leaving it for the town to deal with.
Before demolition can begin, Willis told Town Council members July 6, the town must get rid of the two remaining boats. The dock, Willis added, is dangerously unstable.
“I think the boats,” Willis said, only partly in jest, “were actually keeping it up.”
A shrimp boat tied to the dock also sank in 2013.
Both the Coast Guard and the Department of Health and Environmental Control have been notified, Willis said.
This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 2:24 PM.
