Posted on: Sunday, January 12, 2003

State to sink fishing boat grounded off Maui

Advertiser Staff and News Services

The state is preparing to sink an 85-foot former fishing vessel that was damaged running aground off Maui.

Officials are trying to keep the vessel afloat long enough to clean it before sinking it at sea sometime within the next week, said Steve Thompson, O'ahu District manager for the Division of Boating & Ocean Recreation.

The state took control of the Messenger of Peace after its owners, J. C. Ministries of Marysville, Wash., said it had no insurance or money to rescue the boat, used for a humanitarian mission to the South Pacific.

Thompson said it had yet to be determined whether the owner would be charged for the cost of disposing of the now-unseaworthy vessel.

It cost $100,000 to tow the boat from Maui to the Ke'ehi Small Boat Harbor on O'ahu, and the state spent $25,000 removing oil and hazardous chemicals from the boat to meet Environmental Protection Agency requirements for scuttling at sea, Thompson said.

The vessel went aground off Sugar Beach at Kihei, where it was blown by high winds Jan 4.

The vessel was floated Tuesday by marine salvage workers contracted by the state Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation with money from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

Divers with the state Division of Aquatic Resources have determined that the boat damaged about 950 square feet of coral reef.