The U.S. Coast Guard started to raise a sunken 83-foot historic fishing boat in Harpswell Wednesday morning, an effort that has taken seven months to get underway.
The Jacob Pike, a 75-year-old sardine boat, sank in the harbor off the Harpswell coast during the storms in January. After the owner, Cyrus Cleary, had disagreements with authorities on how to remove the ship, the town declared the vessel abandoned and the Coast Guard took over its cleanup.
On Wednesday, the Coast Guard sent divers into the water to attach chains to the stern of the boat. They next planned to use lift bags to help bring the Jacob Pike up. Once it breaches the surface, officials will pump water out of the storage compartments and hope to tow it to South Portland on Thursday to dispose of it.
The boat has been leaking fuel since it sank. Coast Guard officials removed nine marine batteries and about 400 gallons of oily water mixture from the boat in January, but were not able to finish the clean up. Frank Kulesa, chief of response operations for the northern New England sector of the Coast Guard, said he’s unsure how much oil has been released from the vessel.
Kulesa said no reports have come in of oily or injured wildlife in the area, but Pamela Manns, a lieutenant with the Coast Guard, said it’s important to remove the boat immediately to prevent more pollution.
“Look at this beautiful, pristine coast,” Mann said. “The Coast Guard is dedicated to keeping the Maine coastline pristine for everybody’s use.”
Two booms have surrounded the vessel since January — one with plastic curtains sectioning the area off, and another one that absorbs any sheened oil.
Kulesa said the money for removing the boat comes from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which provides the Coast Guard with the funds to remove abandoned vessels. The cost to remove the Jacob Pike could come to $300,000 and will be passed onto Cleary, Kulesa said.
“Ultimately, our job is just to use that fund to remove the threats from the environment,” Kulsea said.
First built in 1949 by Newbert & Wallace in Thomaston, the Jacob Pike was a refrigerated vessel used to fish for and transport sardines. After the collapse of Maine’s sardine industry, the vessel was used to transport lobster, then pogies. The ship was retired from fishing in 2022.
It then passed through several owners before Cleary bought it last summer with the goal of restoring it. However, Cleary said in a March interview with the BDN that his health took a downturn that forced him to pause the work, leaving the vessel anchored in the river for months.
While Cleary said that he had been checking on the aging boat to ensure it could stay afloat, it sank to the bottom during the first of the January storms.
Kulesa said it’s the first case in a long time in which the northern New England sector had to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to remove a sunken vessel. The typical goal is to have the owner of the vessel cooperate with authorities to remove it.
Cleary did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Sumner Rugh, a descendant of the man who built the Jacob Pike, was looking for a museum or sponsor to fund the removal of the vessel and to take it after it was raised. He said in a March interview that it could have cost $1.5 million to restore it.
But that may not come to pass. According to Mann, the boat will be taken to Turner’s Island in South Portland where it will be cleaned of all residual oil and disposed of.
“It had a very storied career, and it’s unfortunate to see it end like this,” Rugh said last winter.