“Unfortunately, the money wasn’t there,” said Corporal Dave Chabot of the Landowner Relations program of Maine’s Department of Inland Fish and Wildlife, about efforts to remove the Minesweeper from Wiscasset Harbor. The ship still lies sunken after a January 2018 blizzard. Last spring, Chabot asked for the case against owner Christopher Morrison of Wiscasset to be deferred to the next court cycle so one of several programs could be used to fund the vessel’s raising.

Morrison cannot afford to raise it, and the vessel carried no insurance. Wiscasset selectmen voted to require any ship docking or mooring in Wiscasset to carry salvage insurance.

Morrison was sentenced to 100 hours of community service last month, and was ordered to work with the Department of Marine Resources to remove the ship, or work with DMR to restore other areas affected by sunken, leaking vessels. 

Chabot said Minesweeper did not meet the terms of programs he had expected to be of help in raising it; or there was no money for it in older, federally financed programs. For instance, had the Minesweeper sank just a few feet to the east, in the shipping channel, the U.S. Coast Guard would have been obligated to pay for its removal. The Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Submerged Lands program occasionally works with municipalities to remove derelict vessels, but the ship would first have to be declared abandoned and Wiscasset would have to seek the state’s help; a fiscal match would likely be needed.

Wiscasset has no funds in the budget to help remove the vessel.

“I’m not giving up hope, but finding a program with funding available has been a challenge,” Chabot said.

Chabot said if a community partner, such as a salvage company, could be found to raise the ship and get it closer to shore, he can take care of the remains. “We have machinery to smash it into small bits. I’d be very interested in speaking with any salvage company willing to help out with this as a public service.”