State and federal agencies responded Friday after a houseboat swamped earlier in the week as it was being towed to shore for repairs.
The boat was being towed on Tuesday by a lobster boat when it swamped. The owner works as a sternman for the lobster boat owner.
According to Maine Marine Patrol, the owner was planning to ground the Endeavor in order to conduct maintenance.
Department spokesperson Jeff Nichols said the boat has not been abandoned nor has any law been violated that Marine Patrol would enforce. Nichols said the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard’s spill response personnel were notified.
DEP staff and the Coast Guard arrived on site early Friday. Sorbent and hard containment booms were placed around the boat to contain any fuel leaking from the vessel.
“Our investigation is still ongoing, and DEP is collaborating with DMR and USCG,” DEP spokesperson David Madore said. The Coast Guard said its investigation was also ongoing.
According to a press release, crews have started removing diesel fuel from the vessel’s tanks and bilges to prevent further contamination. Maine DEP has removed approximately 50 gallons of diesel so far.
The boat had been at the dock of the Sail, Power and Steam Museum for the past few years. Capt. Jim Sharp said he needed dock space for the Mercantile and put the Endeavor on a mooring.
The former owner Gary Ellsworth had made an addition to the former fishing trawler to give it the houseboat look with a cupola added. Dylan McClure recently acquired the vessel and planned to make repairs to the cement hull, which was leaking, when the effort to ground it went awry.
Sharp said local shipyards were all booked and couldn’t do the repairs, so he was planning to make the repairs himself.
McClure could not be reached for comment.
Owls Head has been bedeviled with boats being abandoned on its shores. In January 2023, a dozen citizens came together, armed with a chainsaw, trash can and pickup trucks, to cut up and remove a wooden sailboat. That vessel had been grounded near the end of Harborside Terrace for about two years.
And in 2024, the 30-foot steel hull Anudari, came ashore during one of the January storms that lashed the Maine coast that year. The vessel was on the shorefront banking of a home on Knowlton Avenue with the mast visible from the road. The vessel was later towed and the town did not have to spend any money for the removal, Selectboard member Linda Post said.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager
