Sunken Cuddy Cabin Recovery in West Little River

Rainwater above a deck drain tells you how long a boat has been ignored. This 22 ft Larson 220 had been parked at a public ramp for months, and the cuddy cabin finally took on enough water that the gunwales sat level with the surface.

The obstacle was the ramp itself. Every launch spot was spoken for, and we had one early window before the boaters showed up. We staged the trailer at the top, ran a line to the bow, and used pumps to drop the water inside while the crew floated the hull off the bottom a few inches at a time. Sunken boat recovery at a busy ramp is a clock job, and we finished before the first fishing rigs arrived.

Time on site was about four hours. The hull had delaminated near the keel and the cabin was soaked through, so there was no repair worth making. There was no salvage value, so after a short tow up the ramp it rode a trailer to our yard past Country Club for dismantling and recycling.