King tides this month helped dislodge the American Challenger from the rocks north of Dillon Beach, giving crews a chance to make incremental progress on the painstaking removal of a vessel that has been grounded for well over a year. Starting on July 9, three cables began applying up to 100 tons of pressure each on the 90-foot fishing boat, pulling it upright and moving it about 10 to 20 feet toward the shore by last week.
“We are making progress,” said Eric Laughlin, a public information officer with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response. “We’ve applied the right pressure, so when the right tides come in, it moves a little.”
The Challenger had been en route from Washington to a scrapyard in Mexico last March when it broke free from its towline in choppy conditions, running aground on a rugged and isolated stretch of Bodega Bay coastline. With no help from the uninsured and cash-strapped owner, a coalition of public agencies was tasked with towing and destroying the vessel.
The unified command consisting of OSPR, the United States Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency and officials from the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary planned last summer to refloat the boat using buoyant foam, but during a series of winter meetings, they settled on a more straightforward winch system. Heavy cables unspooled from three hydraulic drums mounted at the top of the bluff were hooked onto the shipwreck. The cables can apply nearly constant pressure and crews can increase their force when conditions are favorable.
But conditions are not often favorable. “It’s very dependent on the tides,” said Benjamin Wathen, a public information officer with the Coast Guard. “It needs a substantial amount of water under and around it to be able to move, so we’ll see most of our progress when we’re at a king tide with heavy seas.” As a result, he said he could offer no time frame for the project’s completion.
After enough high tides, the boat will reach the shore—still around 190 feet away—where it can be inspected and dismantled and its parts airlifted to a scrapyard owned by the contractor, Global Diving and Salvage. The vessel’s armor-like steel hull is a mixed blessing, officials said. It protected the boat from immediately breaking apart on the rocks when it grounded, and it has maintained its structural integrity for 16 months. The hull appears to be staying intact even under the towlines’ pressure, but its substantial weight—nearly 200 tons—makes the boat all the more difficult to budge.
After the Challenger grounded, officials soon determined there was no immediate risk of a major spill, observing only a light sheen of oil that quickly dissipated. The boat had the capacity for 29,000 gallons of fuel, but many of its tanks were empty while it was being towed, and OSPR quickly drained 650 gallons of oil-contaminated water from the boat last year.
But there are still unknowns. Several of the boat’s fuel tanks, totaling roughly 2,500 to 3,500 in capacity, haven’t been inspected for safety reasons. “They’re out there yanking on this thing, and they really need to get in there and look at that,” said Richard James, an Inverness resident who documents pollution in Tomales Bay.
OSPR officials have absorbent boom staged at Miller Boat Launch in case of a larger spill, and Mr. Laughlin said observers are monitoring for any impacts to wildlife. The uneventful movement so far indicates that the fuel tanks likely have enough integrity to make it all the way to shore, he said.
“There is a potential threat, but a good sign is that with the 300 tons of pressure, the vessel is still holding up,” Mr. Laughlin said. “It’s not breaking apart.”
The Coast Guard’s pot of federal pollution cleanup monies, the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, is covering the winch system and tow operation because of the environmental threat posed by the boat. Once the vessel reaches land and the hazard abates, the Coast Guard loses federal jurisdiction, and the E.P.A. will fund the deconstruction.