Raising a 23 ft Rinker 232 in Navarre, FL

A 23 ft Rinker 232 cuddy cabin with gelcoat crazed like a road map had been left in a marina slip too long. A heavy rain filled the bilge faster than the bilge pump could move it, and the boat sank with the deck awash and the bow slightly up. Everything around it in the marina was fine.

The obstacle was fuel. The tank vent had leaked a sheen into the slip, and the marina office, rightly, wanted it contained. We put a sorbent boom around the stern before we touched the boat, then set lift bags at the gunwales and lifted it slowly so the sheen stayed trapped.

That sunken boat recovery took about four hours. We towed the Rinker out of the slip and over to a trailer on the Gulf Breeze side The hull was solid beneath the crazed gelcoat, so it went to a repair yard, with salvage on the engine intact.