Holly Hill, FL: 23 ft Chris-Craft Cavalier Off the Bottom in One Morning

The bottom of the 23 ft Chris-Craft Cavalier carried a cracked keel strip end to end, and decades of barn dust covered the rest. Someone launched her at a public ramp after years in storage, and the planking kept swelling and weeping until she sat with the deck awash and the bow slightly up.

Dry wood was the surprise. A hull stored that long needs to take water slowly, and sunk boats like this can open seams if they are lifted too hard. We went gentle: bags under the gunwales, slow inflation, and no pumping until she floated. The cracked keel strip held.

We were done in about two hours. A wooden boat yard near Daytona Beach took the tow for a rebuild, since the frames were good and the owner wanted her kept. That made this a rare sunken boat recovery where the salvage was the whole boat and she left the ramp on a trailer.