Winter Garden, FL: 27 ft Catalina 27 Off the Bottom in One Morning

On a mooring in a shallow lake, the 27 ft Catalina 27 sat with standing rigging seized and sails rotted in the bag. After a long hot season the owner left it unattended, and the stern settled with the bow pointing up.

The obstacle was the rig. The mast stood bolted up, and the shrouds had frozen solid, so any lift would have dragged the whole thing sideways on the soft bottom. We cut the rotted sails loose first, then set lift bags at the gunwales. The mast stayed up. That meant moving slowly and keeping the hull level the whole way.

We spent a full morning on site. After a tow to the launch, the sailboat rolled onto a trailer and rode out past Doctor Phillips to our yard. The deck was soft, and the hardware seized, so this was dismantling and recycling, with only a few fittings kept for salvage. Sunken boat removal in shallow water is mostly about not stirring up the bottom.