Sunken fishing boat hauled from the bottom of Morro Bay Harbor

Morro Bay now has one less boat in its waters after a sunken commercial fishing boat was pulled onto land Thursday afternoon.

The 1970s-era wooden boat “Lady Maxine” had been at the bottom of the bay since late July. Prior to the sinking, its condition had severely declined after years of abandonment by its owner, according to Morro Bay Harbor Director Eric Endersby.

“It was so deteriorated it would have never floated again,” Endersby said.

U.S. Coast Guard officials worried the vessel would pollute the bay with the oil and gas still housed within as it sunk in July, but the pollutants were removed before any real damage could be done, the harbor director said.

Getting the boat out of the water wasn’t a simple job.

An independent dive team had attempted to bring the boat out of the water within a month of it sinking, Endersby said, but they didn’t have enough flotation devices to get the job done.

So, Endersby worked to coordinate with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s volunteer dive team to get the boat out of the bay.

The dive team went out Wednesday afternoon to rig the flotation devices around the boat, but “ran out of daylight” before they were able to get any further, Endersby said.

Thursday morning at about 7:15 a.m., the dive team returned and got the boat floating again at the public boat ramp for Negranti Construction to arrive mid-morning with the heavy machinery to pull it out. The team was guided by the Morro Bay Harbor Patrol throughout the day.

The workers soon found out that the boat didn’t slide so easily out of the bay onto the boat ramp.

At one point, the thick chains wrapped around the boat used to try to pull it out snapped — making the small crowd that had gathered to watch jump in their skin.

After rethinking how to rig the chains and thick cables around the boat and adding a second piece of heavy machinery to tag team on the tugging, the crew was eventually able to drag the vessel out of the bay.

Negranti Construction will return on Friday to destroy the boat, Endersby said.

The engine may be taken to a metal recycling center, and Endersby said the bronze propeller could make good lawn art — but the rest of the boat is trash.

The price? Endersby predicts it may cost the harbor department $15,000 out of its operating budget.

“Unfortunately, we’re just going to eat it in our budget. It’s going to fall on us,” he said. “The owner has no ways or means to pay for it.”

Because the boat was moored on private property within the bay, the harbor department was unable to enforce a lien on the boat, Endersby said.

“It doesn’t kinda suck, it really sucks,” he said.