Sunken Cabin Cruiser Recovery in Palmetto Bay

Decades of barn dust covered the 23 ft Chris-Craft Cavalier, and a cracked keel strip was hiding under it. The owner put her on a mooring to get her ready for sale, and within a week she had taken on enough water to sink until the gunwales sat level with the water.

The obstacle was timing. A wood and fiberglass hull that has been dry for decades swells when it gets wet, and a rushed lift can pop seams. So the crew brought her up slowly: a pair of lift bags, a long pause halfway to let the planks take up, and then the rest of the lift.

Four hours of patient work and she floated. We handled the tow to the ramp and loaded her for a trip toward Homestead to a repair yard. The structure was dry and the engine had never been run hard, so a shop wanted her. That counts as salvage in the best sense, and this sunken boat removal sent nothing to a landfill.