Water recovery · Florida
Sunken Boat Removal & Recovery in Florida
Sunken boat removal in Florida covers the raise, the tow, and disposal or salvage, with one firm number from photos and depth before any crew mobilizes.
Divers, lift bags, and pumps on call across the state. Fuel in the water means every hour matters: call first, paperwork second.
Boats go down in Florida every week of the year, not just in storm season. A bilge pump quits during a rainy stretch and the boat settles at the slip overnight. A hull fitting lets go at the mooring and by morning the deck is awash. A storm shoves a sailboat onto the bottom beside the seawall. However it happened, the owner wakes up to the same picture: a sinking or sunken boat where a floating one used to be, a marina office that wants it gone, and no idea who to call.
That is the call we take. My crews handle sunken boat recovery across Florida, from marina slips and private docks to canals, boat ramps, and open waterway moorings. We assess from photos and depth, give you one number, and then the equipment moves. Nothing gets invented at the dock.
How sunken boat recovery works
Every raise follows the same order. Divers survey the hull first: where it sits, what the bottom is, whether fuel or oil is still aboard. Then they attach the lift bags to cleats or rigging points, and the bags bring the vessel toward the surface in stages. Once the gunwales clear, salvage pumps begin pumping the water out faster than it can return, and the boat floats on its own lines again. From there a towboat walks it to the nearest usable boat ramp or haul-out, and the trailer takes over.
Vessels 30ft plus in length, deep water, or hulls with structural damage need more: additional divers, float bag deployment under the hull, sometimes a crane at the seawall. That is specialized equipment we bring, not a problem you solve. Fuel, oil, and batteries come off the moment the boat is accessible, which keeps a recovery from turning into a cleanup and keeps you on the right side of environmental regulations.
What does sunken boat removal cost in Florida?
There is no honest flat price for a raise, and anyone quoting one before seeing photos is guessing. The cost of boat recovery moves with four things: how deep the boat sits, how big it is, how hard the spot is to reach, and whether fuel is still aboard. A 19-foot runabout settled next to its own dock is the simple end. A 34-foot yacht on the bottom of a channel is the other end, and the average recovery cost between those two points spans a wide range.
What we fix is the process: photos and depth first, one firm number second, crews third. The number covers the raise, the tow, and the disposal decision, and it does not change at the water. If the boat went down with the trailer nearby and can be pulled at the ramp, we say so, because the simple version should cost the simple price.
After the raise: salvage, recycle, or repair
A raised boat goes one of three ways. If the vessel still has value, we tow it to a repair yard and your insurance conversation continues; a salvaged boat with a sound hull is worth saving. If it does not, the hull goes to our yard for dismantling and recycling: motors, metals, and hardware come off for salvage, recyclable materials such as metal go to the recycler, and the fiberglass goes to a disposal facility, not a fence line. Boat junkyards take the parts worth keeping; the rest is handled as responsible disposal under the same rules we run on dry land.
The honest version most owners need to hear: a boat that spent a week underwater is usually a disposal job, not a repair job. We tell you which one yours is from the first photos, before you spend money raising a hull that is headed to the recycler either way.
Should you try to raise it yourself?
Every DIY sunken boat removal idea runs into the same three walls: lift capacity, fuel, and the bottom. Barrels and ropes do not lift a waterlogged hull that weighs three times its dry weight. Disturbing a tank underwater puts fuel in the water with your name on it. And dragging a hull across the bottom turns a recovery into hull damage and a bigger bill. The owners who call us after trying are not worse boaters than the ones who call first; they just paid twice.
Boats we raise
Runabouts and center consoles off private docks. Pontoons that took water at the lift. Sailboats on the bottom with the mast still standing, which need rig work before the raise. Cabin cruisers and yachts at marina slips, the jobs where divers and the marina office both get involved. Old boats that sank at a mooring nobody checked all winter. If it is underwater in Florida and needs to come out, it is our trade. A junk boat that never sank but needs to leave your property is a different page: Florida boat removal, with junk boat removal from $250.
Counties we cover in Florida
From the Panhandle to the Keys: every coastal county and the lake counties inland. Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier on the Gulf side; Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, Brevard, Volusia, Duval up the Atlantic; Monroe and the Keys; Polk, Orange, Lake and the inland chains. County pages below list the cities our crews run. Recovery jobs stage from the nearest ramp, so a boat down anywhere in Florida is reachable.
- Alachua County
- Bay County
- Brevard County
- Broward County
- Charlotte County
- Citrus County
- Clay County
- Collier County
- Duval County
- Escambia County
- Flagler County
- Hernando County
- Highlands County
- Hillsborough County
- Indian River County
- Lake County
- Lee County
- Leon County
- Manatee County
- Marion County
- Martin County
- Miami-Dade County
- Monroe County
- Nassau County
- Okaloosa County
- Orange County
- Osceola County
- Palm Beach County
- Pasco County
- Pinellas County
- Polk County
- Santa Rosa County
- Sarasota County
- Seminole County
- St. Johns County
- St. Lucie County
- Sumter County
- Union County
- Volusia County
Sunken boat removal in Florida: what owners ask
Fuel in the water moves you to the front of the line; say so in the first call. A standard raise schedules within days, not weeks, and the assessment from photos happens the same day. The longer a hull sits, the heavier and more fragile it gets, so early photos save real money.
Often. Wreck removal is a standard line in many policies, and we never promise what your adjuster will decide. What we control is the file: photos before the raise, during, and after, plus the disposal paperwork. Adjusters move faster when the documentation is already complete.
The boat stays your boat, and the marina will expect it handled quickly. We coordinate with the marina office directly: the slip schedule, the crane access, the paperwork they want before equipment moves. You make one call, not five. The legal side by state is on our Florida boat removal page.
Sometimes, and speed decides it. Hours underwater: often yes, after a serious engine flush. A week: usually a disposal conversation. We give you the honest read from the first photos, because raising a boat to save it and raising it to recycle it are the same job with different endings.
Your call, made with real information. Repair yard if it is worth saving, our yard for dismantling and recycling if it is not. Metals and hardware are salvaged, the hull is processed properly, and you get proof the vessel is gone for the insurance file.
Yes. Inland Florida sinks boats too: lake moorings, private docks, boat ramps after a swamping. The equipment is the same, the haul is often easier, and the same crews run the lake counties on the same terms.
Get a sunken boat out of the water
Send photos, the depth if you know it, and where the boat sits: slip, mooring, ramp, or seawall. One firm number for the raise, the tow, and what comes after, before any crew mobilizes. Fuel in the water? Call now, crews answer 24/7.