Sailboat sinks in Beaufort. ‘That boat has been sitting at anchorage for 12 years’
A sunken sailboat in the Beaufort River was discovered over the weekend, and now it’s been declared abandoned, making it the public’s problem.
The latest case of a derelict vessel polluting area waters surfaced on Saturday.
Duncan O’Quinn, owner of O’Quinn Marine Construction in Beaufort, said the boat sank in Factory Creek near the Whitehall Boat Landing, one of the most utilized water access points in Beaufort County. Masts from the boat could be seen protruding from the creek when reporters from the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet went by the site on Wednesday.
The landing is located on Lady’s Island, across the Woods Memorial Bridge from Beaufort.
The sailboat, which had been moored near the boat landing for years, began taking on water and sank Saturday night, said O’Quinn, who notified the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
“That boat has been sitting at anchorage for 12 years,” O’Quinn said Wednesday. “That’s exactly the issue we’ve had in South Carolina.”
Vessels being abandoned in coastal areas have been a problem in South Carolina for years. Beaufort-based O’Quinn says he’s been assisting DNR in removing derelict vessels at no charge for eight years because nobody wants to do it. While the company pulls the boats out of the water, DNR pays to dispose of them at the landfill.
It’s not the only vessel that needs to be removed from Beaufort waters.
Last September, several boats washed onto the shore of the Beaufort River on Bay Street in downtown Beaufort during Tropical Storm Helene and have remained beached ever since. O’Quinn also will be involved in removing those boats, beginning this week.
An “abandoned vessel” placard was placed on the sunken vessel at the Whitehall Boat Landing and DNR is now trying to get in touch with the owner of the sailboat, First Sgt. Juston Gantt with the department’s law enforcement division said. The vessel, he added, had “some form of a leak.”
