Sunken Sportfisher Recovery in Oviedo

Both engines on the 28 ft Bertram 28 sportfisher were dead, and the cockpit sole had gone soft enough to flex underfoot. She sat on a mooring for most of a year before water came over the transom, and she settled by the stern, bow pointing up.

The obstacle was weight. A boat that size, with two big engines low in the hull, holds a lot of water, and the soft sole meant we could not trust it to take a strap. So the crew built the lift from the hull itself: bags under the keel line fore and aft, with three pumps working the engine room in stages.

It took about five hours to get her level. We towed her to a ramp and trucked her toward Lake Mary to our yard. The structure under the sole was rotten, so she was dismantled and recycled. Engines, shafts, and bronze went out as salvage. That is sunken boat removal for a boat with nothing left to rebuild.