Team effort finally gets boat floating
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
WAIMANALO — As a construction excavator timed its gentle nudges to the incoming waves, the fishing boat Kay was returned to sea, inch by painstaking inch, yesterday after being aground near Waimanalo Beach Park for three days.
Kainoa Jenson, 8, of Hawai'i Kai, watches yesterday's effort to free the fishing boat Kay, which was beached for three days in Waimanalo. The excavator at right, operated by Calvin Souza, was credited for much of the success.
Men operating the 40-ton excavator and two heavy-duty tow trucks had a window of about one hour to refloat the 59-foot boat before the tide went back out.
The sand made the task very difficult, said Randy Cates, coordinator of the salvage effort by Cates International. The sandy beach created a suction that countered efforts to move the boat.
"What did it today was the excavator," Cates said. "It was a combination of the tractor pull and the excavator, but we wouldn't have gotten it out without the excavator."
The vessel will remain anchored offshore where a damage assessment will be done. Cates will wait for calmer weather before several smaller boats pull the Kay beyond the reef, where a tug can take it to dry dock for repairs, he said.
The sight of a beached ship drew dozens of onlookers all week. Each, seemingly, had his or her own theory about how to get the Kay unstuck.
"You cannot work against the water," said Tommy Josue, a longtime Waimanalo fisherman. "You gotta work with the water."
Josue said it looked like the water was turning the boat to starboard but he thought the salvager seemed to want the boat to turn to port.
Cates and crew arrived at the beach at 6:30 a.m. yesterday. They devised a pulley-like arrangement offshore that would allow them
to use the pickup trucks' power like a tractor pull. Teams of men carried six 250-pound anchors about 100 yards offshore, behind the Kay's stern. They attached a 76,000-pound-test braided nylon rope to the boat's stern, rigged a compound pulley at the anchor points and ran the rope to shore and to the tow trucks.
The line of pull went from the tow trucks to the anchors 100 yards offshore and back to the stern of the vessel.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
The plan was to pull the boat out to the anchors when the tide was high.
When the high tide alone did not carry the Kay out, the excavator's shovel nudged the boat while a pulley system was at work on the back of the boat.
They had hoped to do the same thing the day, before it took longer than expected to unload the Kay's cargo of 15,000 pounds of fish and they missed the high tide.
About 50 people watched from the beach yesterday, enjoying a sunny day that was cooled by a brisk wind.
Erosion along much of the section of beach has left a 4- to 6-foot drop to the water — a good vantage point for watching. Homes are set back about 150 feet, with a parkway of naupaka and ironwoods between the beach and residences.
About 1 p.m. yesterday, the excavator began "softening" the sand, Cates said. The suction action from the sand hindered progress. Moving the sand was an attempt to make it more fluid and to break the suction action, he said.
The excavator first dug around the bow of the boat and then on the port side of the vessel, removing sand and piling it on shore. At one point the excavator stopped digging and was used to pull the bow around to the left. The machine was also used to lift the bow.
Half an hour before the high tide at 2:30. the tow trucks, owned by T&T Service and Repair and Islandwide Towing, had taken up the slack in their lines and were ready to pull on command.
They had to work gingerly lest they rip the anchors from the ocean floor, said Thompson Tom of T&T Service. "If we pull all one time, the anchors going come and the boat going stay," Tom said.
The trucks began to pull. Little seem to be happening. Some people said the boat was coming closer to shore.
The excavator was moved in front of the boat and gently extended its arm until the bucket was touching the bow. Each time a wave came, the excavator pushed.
"Go, baby, go," one bystander said.
First nothing happened.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
Then the Kay began inching backward. Soon it was moving a foot at a time.
With the Kay afloat, more work lay ahead — securing the fishing boat offshore, retrieving 1,200 feet of rope and replacing sand that had to be removed. There was no damage or spillage, said a shoreline resident who observed yesterday's entire operation.
Three times the excavator had to be repositioned to gain leverage to push again.
Shortly after 3 p.m. the boat was floating.
Relief was evident but subdued. More work had to be done before anyone could go home, including securing the Kay offshore, collecting the 1,200 feet of rope and replacing the sand.
Calvin Souza, who operated the excavator, saw the project as a team effort and said he was confident they would move the boat.
Souza, aware that timing was the key, said everyone worked to get ready by the high tide.
"The intention was to twist it and pull it out but it didn't work, so we ended pushing it out," Souza said.
Seeing the Kay afloat was a relief to Mike Sitch, who is hosting a wedding tomorrow in his yard close to where the boat had washed ashore. Sitch said he had been concerned about potential noise from the salvage operations during the ceremony.
"I'm very relieved it's done and there's no real damage or spillage, he said.
The estimated cost for the salvage is $30,000.
Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com. or 234-5266.
