Despite multiple efforts, overturned shrimp boat is still stuck in Bluffton’s May River

Although the shrimp boat that overturned in the May River 10 days ago is still there, it poses no threat to public safety or the environment, a U.S. Coast Guard representative said Tuesday.

The boat, “Miss Annie,” overturned in the river off the coast of Bull Island and began leaking fuel on Sept. 15. State officials from the Coast Guard, S.C. Department of Natural Resources, and S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control have been monitoring the situation since.

After three days out on the river last week, the Coast Guard and crews from private companies based in Savannah and Jacksonville, Fla., removed as much fuel as possible from the boat and extracted 350 gallons of “oily water mixture,” Clayton Rennie, Coast Guard chief marine science technician, said Tuesday.

Rennie said the exact ratio of oil to water hadn’t been determined.

“We extracted all the oil we can,” he said.

Because of the way the boat is sitting and part of it has sunken into the ground, Miss Annie won’t be moving anywhere on its own, Rennie said.

Fresh booms — floating beams used to contain oil spills — were placed around the boat Friday and remained there as a Hilton Head Island company attempted to salvage the boat, Rennie said.

“Out of good will, we’ve been trying to help the guys get the boat out,” Dan Anderson, owner of Barrier Island Marine Contractors LLC, said Tuesday afternoon.

Anderson’s company sent a team out both Monday and Tuesday with a crane to assist the boat’s owner and his crew with moving Miss Annie out of the river, but both attempts were unsuccessful.

Anderson explained the river’s tide affects being able to move the boat, and the crew is waiting for a low tide that will make it easier.

Recreational shellfish harvesting season is set to begin Monday, according to SCDNR’s website.

No oyster harvest closures are in affect, but DHEC is continuing to monitor the situation and conditions, a DHEC spokesperson told The Island Packet in an email on Friday.

The owner of the boat is King Cooper of Fayetteville, Ga., according to a federal permit, but the stern of the vessel has “Beaufort” painted on it.