Coral Gables, FL: 20 ft Sylvan Mirage 20 Off the Bottom in One Morning

This 20 ft Sylvan Mirage 20 was a tired pontoon, stained at the waterline with furniture rotted through. At a public ramp she slipped under at the stern, with the bow pointing up and the aft deck well below.

Getting her out of the ramp was the hard part. The tubes were full, and the trailer could not back down far enough to take a wet pontoon. We ran lift bags along the deck rails and floated her in a wide arc toward the shallow end. The furniture came off first, one rotted seat at a time.

We spent about three hours at the ramp. With dented tubes and a weak deck, a repair made no sense. Our tow truck took her toward Tamiami to our yard, where she was dismantled and recycled. The salvage was the aluminum, and the sunken boat removal left the ramp open before lunch.