Anyone who has boated the lower Croix or upper pool 3 the past few years has seen this boat. It was up on pool 2 for a hell of a long time before they moved it down there. Kinda feel bad for the two, but ya know…… that’s what is bound to happen when you can’t afford a dock. I too would not be surprised to find out the boat was sabotaged. Many, including me felt it was an eyesore!
From today’s Pioneer Press:
Down – like the ship
Two men are sad and homeless after the sub chaser they lived on sank in the Mississippi
BY JOHN BREWER
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 12/18/2007 12:16:45 AM CST
Richard Lindsey’s, left, 110-foot World War II- era submarine chaser lay tipped over and frozen in the ice of the Mississippi River just upstream from Prescott, Wis., on Monday, December 17, 2007. (Scott Takushi, Pioneer Press)
The boat was his dream.
Then the dream took on water.
Richard Lindsey bought and restored a World War II-era sub chaser more than 30 years ago and has lived on it since 1979. Now, the historic-boat-turned-bachelor-pad is mostly submerged in the Mississippi River near Prescott, Wis., and likely is unsalvageable.
“I tried to save a piece of United States history, and it looks like I lost the battle,” the 59-year-old said. “Or maybe the war.”
It’s still unclear what caused the boat, a participant in the Battle of Normandy in 1944, to spring a leak and slip from its mooring off Dakota County’s Point Douglas and into about 8 feet of dark, icy river water.
Was it a catastrophic hull failure or sabotage? Lindsey said he might never know.
According to Lindsey, he and his boat mate, Douglas Lentz, 20, moored the vessel up the Mississippi River from its confluence with the St. Croix River a few weeks ago – the same place they wintered last year and lived all this year. They took a trip to Tennessee by car, certain that the boat, which has no name, would be fine. Its generator was solar-powered, which meant the pumps would always run. A heater also cranked out warmth in the engine room.
But Friday, Lindsey said he got a call from the Coast Guard. His ship was sinking.
By the time he got back to Prescott on Saturday, ice gripped the boat in a sad list.
The duo salvaged the pricey solar panels from the roof and pulled out any loose canisters of propane and fuel.
“It could be a big problem if it leaks,” Lindsey said. “But it hasn’t yet.”
Authorities are keeping an eye on things, too. So far, they said, it appears it hasn’t spilled much fuel – it carries at least 400 gallons of biodiesel – or any of its 40 gallons of engine oil into the river.
“Right now, the boat’s stable in its current condition,” said Chief Warrant Officer David Swisher of the Coast Guard.
The Environmental Protection Agency is acting as federal on-scene coordinator of the cleanup, Swisher said, but an EPA contact was unavailable for comment.
On Monday, Lindsey and Lentz were left to hack out any valuable hardware from the deck of the iced-in vessel.
They had to smash windows above water level to reach inside the cabin, where books, a television and plastic aspirin bottles floated in a reeking, oil-laced stew.
“Everything that I owned went down with the thing,” Lindsey said.
That the 110-foot craft went down still baffles him. The wood-and-steel hull was lined with inches of concrete, too, making an accidental rupture seem unlikely.
“It had to be something odd,” he reasoned.
Without a home, the two men are couch-surfing with friends and family.
Lindsey supposes he’ll rent an apartment and continue working as a handyman in Prescott.
“It’s a nice town,” he said.
Lentz doesn’t have plans.
“All my stuff was in there, too,” he said.
The guys suppose they’ll be done recovering what they can from the boat by the end of the week.
Then it’s either a matter of having the government pull the boat from the ice or waiting to see if it can be pumped dry and moved this spring.
Either way, Lindsey’s resigned to giving up the boating life.
“It’s gone as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093 or at [email protected].