Haines staff, divers respond after 81-foot tender sinks in small boat harbor
- Chilkat Valley News
- 22 hours ago
- 2 min read
By Will Steinfeld
Chilkat Valley News
An 81-foot tender, the F/V Pavlof, sank Thursday morning while moored in the Haines Harbor.
Harbormaster Henry Pollan said he was notified just before 10 a.m., and harbor staff worked through the morning laying oil-containment and absorption boom around the 84-year-old ship, which remained tied to the dock.
At noon, owner Brent Crowe said he had contacted the Coast Guard and Department of Environmental Conservation, and would be working on containing contamination and salvaging the boat.
By then the boat was laying on its side on the seafloor, partially under the E float it was moored to — the float closest to the breakwater entrance. Through the afternoon as the tide dropped, more and more of the boat began to show above the waterline and the dock section propped on top of the hull began to lift.
Pollan and harbor staff disconnected the float and its electrical connections, allowing it to lift freely. By low tide, Pollan said, he thought the float would likely be fully out of the water.
Through the afternoon, under increasing darkness, community members worked to free the boat — or at least prepare it to be floated out from under the dock once the tide came back up — before a -4 foot low tide at 6:27 p.m.
A number of boats worked to try to pull the Pavlof out, including the F/V Rustler and F/V Shotgun. Divers, including Joey Jacobson and Luke Marquardt, worked underwater to attach lines to the hull.
One possibility once the lines were fixed, volunteer Ian Seward said, would be to use a Chilkoot Indian Association barge at a higher tide to help free the Pavlof.
“That’s the only boat with enough buoyancy to do it without calling down to Juneau,” Seward said.
• This article originally appeared in the Chilkat Valley News.
