MacGregorSailors.com

Bruce, Rich, Marty...you guys been down to see the grounded sailing vessel. At 90 feet long and twin masts at 88 feet she is a sad sight, laying dry on the beach at low tide. went aground on monday...tried to pull her off at low tide this morning...no luck, the towing line parted from the vessel. Will try again tommorrow at low tide 0800 hrs. I will be there monitoring ch 16.

Sad news. Pretty ship. Click the first pic for their website.



Story here (click the pic):


Video here:

It is a sad situation. fortunently no one was seriously hurt. A tug tried to pull her free today-the line snapped. She's not looking too good-looked like a big hole on the starboard side transom in one pic.

I just went by and snap a pic of it with my camera. Its drawing quite a crowd. Doesnt look to be too damaged...



Silverstrand is a fairly sandy bottom beach but it is pretty close to the jetty.

So Steve, why are they pulling at LOW tide, wouldn't high tide make more sense?

That's what I was thinking Duane.

And maybe even 'pushing' this thing out with some water under it.

I think the 'Navy' has to cave and come over and hook something on to Irving Johnson's bow eye and drag the sucker back out to sea.

I have sat and drank with skippers who would be willing to give it a 'Gulliver's' chance. But, they can't get 'permission'.

Looks like I was wrong about the transom damage...They're about to free it today...within an hour and a half. They're using three tugs with three cables this time.

close up of the transom as of this morning. They got this thing flipped to the other side now and making some progress in getting it loose.

I saw this on the national news the other night. Sure is nice having someone on the scene. Great pictures.

wow! that thing has alot of lines

notice how far away the tug is from the vessel.



I guess this gives it plenty of room to stretch to prevent from the snapping of lines that happened yesterday.

sorry I missed you , I was there this morning too. In the above photo, the tug ended up swinging way around to the starboard side and tried giving a tug at that angle. A large tractor on the beach was secured to the port transom and tried to exert a twist to it....no luck. Next high tide is a little past 2000 hrs tonight. Will go down to check it out. Other wise again tommorrow morning. Not much of a high tide here, about 5 feet or so. At low tide she lays dry, so you can walk up to it. I talked to some of the salvage people and they told me that they cannot exert anymore pulling force...they measure that sort of thing...or the bow will be ripped off.

Will be down there unless it rains, as forcasted tonight.

Has anyone tried making it float higher? A few well placed inflateable things around it should help lift it enough that the tug can move it.
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How about a crane on treads drives out and moves the ship a few feet out to sea during the lowest tide?
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How about put a scoop on the line from the tug and pull a channel into the sand then move the tow line to the ship and get it into the new temporary channel?
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How about make a harness that wraps around the whole ship that the tug can pull hard without breaking the ship?
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I am sad to see it become a wreck.

I was down there today and it was a sad sight to see such a great looking ship in such ugly distress. How did the disaster get started in the first place?

Second question...how does the salvage laws come into play here?


Rich

I was down there today and it was a sad sight to see such a great looking ship in such ugly distress. How did the disaster get started in the first place?

Second question...how do the salvage laws come into play here?


Rich

I offered to use my massive 50 horse Honda to help tow her out, but they were afraid it might pull the mast out of the step.

Steve, did they get her pulled off tonight? I was out sailing last week and as I came in, she was pulling out to sea. A really beautiful rig. Such a shame to see it laying so helplessly.

I would have thought they could rig a block and tackle to the other side of the T breakwater and used several tractors to haul her back out instead of tugs. Its going to be an expensive operation regardless.

Maybe if we got all of the Macs together and pulled from different points on the Johnson we could wriggle it free.

B