A sunken fishing boat in Sitka’s harbor will remain where it is for the indefinite future, while its owner develops a better plan to remove it.
The 44-foot wooden troller Denny M sunk outside Eliason Harbor earlier this year. A buoy marks its present location in the Sitka Channel.
Chief Warrant Officer Michael Wortman heads up the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Detachment in Sitka. He says the owner’s original plan to ground the Denny M on Japonski Island did not win the Coast Guard’s approval.
“And they were basically going to drag the vessel underwater to a ramp. And since it was crossing the channel, and we didn’t have a good plan in place to coordinate efforts, equipment, or notifying the vessels transiting the area, we pretty much downed the operation.”
Wortman says the Denny M rests in 35 feet of water, with 25 feet of clearance at low tide, and is not a hazard to navigation. The boat’s rigging is gone, there was no fuel on board at the time it sank, and most of the equipment had been removed. Now, it’s just a matter of getting it out of the way – sometime.
“It’s undetermined at this point. Essentially the owner can’t move it until we get the plan and make sure things are proper. And we’re working with the harbormaster and owner to make that happen but there’s no timeline right now for that to occur.”
Wortman says the Denny M is part of a larger problem of derelict boats in Sitka waters. He says there will be a push later this year to address that issue.
Ed Schoenfeld and Rachel Waldholz contributed to this story.
