Raising a 26 ft Pearson 26 in Miami Beach, FL

The deck core on this 26 ft Pearson 26 sailboat was soft around every stanchion, and rain finally found its way below. By the time we saw it, the boat was sunk beside a residential canal seawall with only the cabin roof showing. The rig stood up out of the water like a marker.

The obstacle was the seawall. Concrete on one side meant the hull could scrape and gouge as it came up, and there was no beach to drag it onto. We put lift bags under the keel sections, padded the wall with fenders, and walked the boat off it as it rose, using pumps only after the hatch was above water.

The sunken boat removal took about four hours from setup to floating. We towed the Pearson along the canal to a ramp, past the neighbors who had come out to watch. Hull and keel checked out, so it went to a repair yard, a good salvage for a boat that most would have called finished.