Legacy on the Hard

Very nice CaptTom!!!

Thanks Brandon. Been chasing this story for a while, and figured better get out there to get at least the photos.
Conchwood just told me they moved it about 100 feet today, need to spend a little time dredging more for the next pull. At least she is moving.

Conchwood

I went out yesterday and they were pumping sand. she is sitting on a old dead reef which is about 8ft down covered with 8ft of sand, so they have pumped the inital sand around where she sat and turned her, then pumped a narrow "channel" forward towards deeper water and pulled [dragged] her ahead into that one. now working on next forward stretch and putting that sand in hole she left behind. should be pulling again in next couple days.Captian of salvage boat has suddenly become very quiet on info though.

Here's a recent photo courtesy of conchwood with the dredge at the bow clearing a channel. Realize that this is a tidal area, so the depth of dredging and time of pull have to be controlled. Either way, this is more progress than Legacy has seen in almost two years, so it's a step in the right direction.

Update -
Fellow member conchwood was able to get out to Legacy last week after about a week and a half of snotty weather all across South Florida.
They look to still be making progress extracting Legacy, albeit slower than originally anticipated. Conchwood mentioned the day he was out there, there was a flurry of activity with various folks running between Legacy and the houseboat fleet.
There also was an AP story out last week on Legacy, pretty much regergitating old news. Conchwood and I will do our best to keep everyone informed as to the status. The photos shows additional booms on site, that can either mean they are going to step up operations or are having a problem of controlling the sand.
Stay tuned...

thanks for the update

Conchwood and Capt Tom, thanks for the great pics and updates. Can you enlighten us as to how far they move Legacy at a time, and how far she has to go to refloat? Details are interesting.

I've heard that the yacht is moving about 10 feet/day. Conchwood recently mentioned that they may want to dredge more before the next pull.
The yacht was originally pushed in almost a mile onto the flats. And there is a cable, or series of cables connected, that reach along the original path of entry back to a work boat out in deeper water.
Here's a few shots.
We'll pass more along as we get it. But since we have posted here at YachtForums and did the story at The Triton, several others news organizations have done follow-up stories, but mostly restating old news and no photos from going on site. So perhaps CNN and AP follow YachtForums also?

Great Capt. Tom.

Thanks for the updates and best of luck to all involved.

at the hilton dock in key west, where he allegedly refused to pay $3.oo a foot for docking, ,,,,,,the boats floated up. the boats floated down. such was the case for most of the livaboards in key west. i am land locked in key west. my house doesn't float. i had 2 feet of ocean in my house. boats floated up---boats floated down.

Here's a photo from Oct 11 courtesy of conchwood. Progress seems slow, but they are continuing the efforts.
Asailsman, it looks as though they have pulled her approximately 400 feet, based on the positioning of the yellow floats behind her (not noticable in this photo) and the placement of stakes along the path.
Conchwood will get back out when he can. I will make a trip back out in Nov, possibly a fly-over to better show progress.

CaptTom, I'm confused in your article it says they expect to take 3 weeks. What did they expect to finish in three week? Surley not the entire salvage, I say this because my friend on the salvage crew (his father and uncle own the salvage company) said he would be down there close to a year and long if you include towing it to where it will be loaded on a ship to go to Italy.

VTX,
First, welcome to YF.
The 3-week time frame came from the owner of the company when I met him at the yacht in early September. He sounded confident that his process would get Legacy out of there fairly quickly. Now, I was not going to judge him, since I am not a salvor and don't know all that goes into an operation like this one. But I did have my reservations, being that Legacy needs to go about a mile before getting off the flats.
Of course, there could also be many factors in play here that have not allowed a more timely recovery, such as weather, pumping ability, sand consistency, etc. I do want and need to report accurate information (as accurate as it may be at the moment I get it). And I would be eager to meet with the salvage team and/or the owner to get a more current status to the operation. I do plan on heading back down there this month for an update. Thanks

PS Here is a photos from Oct 27. By our estimates we think Legacy has been pulled approximately 1,000 ft so far.

Thanks for the continuing updates, Tom.
Having been witness to numerous groundings (only a few of which that I was responsible for or would admit to), I agree with your reservations regarding effort & time required, especially in the case of "Legacy".

Let's see... one NM = 6080 FT...if I take off my shoes & socks, that comes to fifteen more weeks, or, roughly, around the time of the MIA Boat Show will we see "Legacy" bobbing at anchor.

I wouldn't want to bet on it, though.

Here are a few photos taken during a flyover on Nov 24. As you'll see, progress continues but still a way to go. Sand plume is "interesting". May need better booms to contain it. Willl post more in a few days.

Here's a few more from our flyover...

Digging a Channel

It has been awhile since I last read about this salvage operation, but I seem to remember that their latest method involved using some high-pressure jetting technics to create the channel to the deeper water.

I once worked for a company based out of Singapore, BaySea Cable Systems, that was involved in lots of subsea burial of gas pipelines and fiber-optic cable thruout SE Asia. We concentrated on the shallow water 'beach approaches', where it was deemed necessary to insure a good trench was available to bury those items and protect them from damage particularly by fishermen.

We were also tasked to remove some clay like sediment from a power plant water intake facility with our special water jetting equipment.

Since our jetting equipment was proprietary knowledge I will not mention those details unless, or until, I receive the okay from the owner of the company. I did bring this subject thread to their attention in case they decided to contribute.

Brian

Brian,
That's pretty much my feeling also. I did see the equipment they are using and was told about it also, but don't need to discuss it since it may be proprietary, but also the focus of my postings is on the recovery of the yacht, not the equipment in detail. I may at some time get more into it, but that will be later, once Legacy is freed.
As an update, we were able to get the gps cooridinates of where Legacy was as of end of December. Calculating the distance from her starting point, she has been pulled approximately 1,800 feet, but still has that much, most likely more, to go. The water stays a bit shallow for a long distance. The utility boat that is doing the pulling was in about 9 feet when measured.

Hi,

It's probably a little late for new ideas here but......

I wonder if anyone has ever looked at digging a hole in front of her, sinking a barge big enough to carry the boat and then drag Legacy over the barge and pump the barge out.

I admit it would be a big hole in one place but this would surely reduce the damage being done to a wider area.

barge idea

k1w1--not a bad idea, but the barge loaded with legacy would have to float in 2-3 feet of water to bring her out. that would be a tall order. keep them ideas a-comin'!