Protruding from the waters of Sarasota Bay lies one final derelict vessel.
It’s a single-mast sailboat that was sunk June 6, when the storms that came ashore from Tropical Storm Colin broke the boat’s anchor lines, sending it crashing into the Cortez Bridge.
Six other boats also broke free from their anchorage at the end of Bridge Street and either sank or crashed into the Historic Bridge Street Pier.
By Aug. 10, one last abandoned vessel remained. Officials don’t know when it’s going to be removed, but the process hopefully will be smoothed over for future cases.
The city and Manatee County removed the others, however, one last skeleton remains across from 12th Street South in Bradenton Beach.
“It’s a real problem,” Bradenton Beach Commissioner Jan Vosburgh said. “There’s no lights on it at night, so no one can see it’s there. I think they used to run drugs out of it, too.”
Vosburgh has been active in trying to get the boat removed from the bay, but so far she has had no luck.
The city exhausted its funds and Manatee County was called in to remove the sunken boats clogging the anchorage.
According to Bradenton Beach Police Chief Sam Speciale, even if the city had the funds, the last boat is in county waters, outside the city’s jurisdiction.
Alan Lai Hipp, Manatee County environmental program manager for the county parks and natural resources department, said he hopes the boat will be gone by Aug. 19.
“The boat had crashed into the Cortez Road bridge,” Lai Hipp said. “We’re going to have to patch a pretty big gash on the port side before we’re able to get it out of there.”
Manatee County Commissioner John Chappie, whose district includes Anna Maria Island and is Vosburgh’s neighbor, said the boat is a hazard.
“The county and Bradenton Beach are trying to get a hold on derelict vessels and the sooner we can get together the better,” Chappie said.
The waters near Bradenton Beach are overseen by the city and county, but regulated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“There’s just too many hoops to jump through,” Speciale said. “The city has its hoops and the county has even more hoops to jump through to get things done.”
Justin McBride, director of West Coast Inland Navigational District, said steps are being taken to give WCIND greater control over the overall removal process.
“Soon, maybe within a few months, we’ll be in charge of finding people to remove derelict vessels. The city and counties can put in a request with us and we’ll have it removed,” McBride said.
WCIND oversees the continued safe navigation of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte and Lee County waterways. McBride said, currently everyone has their way of doing things.
“Everyone has to put out individual requests for proposals for a vessel removal company for every derelict vessel that appears. When we get the reigns, we’ll oversee the RFP process and things should run a lot smoother.”
McBride also said if the process proves to be more of a hindrance, WCIND will step back and return things to the governments.
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll go back to how it is now,” he said.
Until then, the vessel sunk off 12th Street South remains derelict.