The realities of the sea and weather remind us that not everything’s as fun as it seems at the mouth of Boston Harbor.
A salvage team just raised the wreck of Emily Anne, the trusty tugboat that helped us with restoration work in 2014. The tug sank just north of Graves Light in February, 2016. A quick-thinking pilot boat captain saved Emily Anne‘s crew as she sank, upside-down, in 50 feet of water.
Because the hulk was so close to the North Channel, the Coast Guard recommended that Emily Anne be raised so it wouldn’t be a threat to navigation. And so she was, in early June, with a crane pulling her to the surface and placing her on a barge.
From there, the barge took Emily Anne to a graving yard in Chelsea, where she’ll be broken up and sold for scrap.
These pictures tell the story of the salvage operation, with a couple shots from happier days when she helped with the Graves Light restoration in 2014.
- The wrecked Emily Anne sat upside down in 50 feet of water.
- Emily Anne’s remains are raised from the bottom to be hauled away on a barge.
- Her wheelhouse is gone.
- Sitting in the Chelsea salvage yard, her top deck gone, Emily Anne waits to be scrapped.
- The end of the tugboat that helped restore Graves Light.
- Location of the wreck, February 2016.
- The tugboat Emily Anne as she brought a barge and crane to assist with the Graves Light restoration in 2014.
- Emily Anne takes the spud barge and crane out to Graves, 2014.
Glad her Captain and crew made it. Is that the Monroe railway she’s headed for?