PORT ANGELES — Workers used cranes on Sunday to lift a boat off rocks on Hollywood Beach, where it had been wedged since Thursday, and put it back into the Port Angeles Harbor.
Jay Ketchum, owner of Affordable Services of Sequim, said the cranes were necessary when it became clear that rocks on both sides of the boat had it wedged on the beach.
As the cranes hooked onto the boat, the owner, Franklin “Montana” Gasper, watched from the other end of Hollywood Beach.
“I don’t think about it,” Gasper said.
Ketchum estimated that because it was a complex removal, it could end up costing about $16,000.
“At first it looked simple, but once we got out there and found it wedged on that rock, we had to get the cranes involved; we had a lot of our crew out here, and then there is the boats from Marine Assist, too,” Ketchum said.
Workers from Marine Assist of Port Hadlock and Affordable Services of Sequim were unable to move the boat on Saturday.
The 36-foot boat — called The Drifter — was the second of Gasper’s boats to wash ashore after a storm.
His first boat, the Montana Drifter, hit rocks and began sinking after a Dec. 14 storm.
The Department of Natural Resources also contracted with Ketchum to remove that boat.
That removal is expected to cost about $7,000.
Gasper has said he has a 147-foot boat stored in Tacoma.
Although he previously said he might bring that boat up to Port Angeles, he is rethinking that idea.
“I might go live down there in another 14-or-so months,” Gasper said.
The department will attempt to charge Gasper for the removals, but the state also has a specific fund for the removal of derelict vessels.
Gasper said he lives on Social Security, doesn’t have money to pay for the removal of the boats and that he is currently sleeping under a canoe on Hollywood Beach.
Another owner in jail
Another sailboat also began washing ashore near the Rayonier mill site on Thursday after the storm late on Wednesday night.
The Coast Guard removed the other boat, a 23-foot single-mast sailboat owned by a Port Angeles man, Lynn Mowry, on Friday morning and took it to the marina. It has since been handed over to DNR.
Petty Officer Richard Branning at Coast Guard Group/Air Station Port Angeles said the sailboat was handed over to DNR because the owner is in jail.
Mowry is in Clallam County jail on investigation of two charges of driving under the influence, one charge of third-degree theft and one charge of criminal trespassing.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
