The Rhode Island steel trawler Susan Rose was raised from the sea floor this week a year after sinking off Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., removed as a hazard to navigation.
Resolve Marine’s RMG 400 lift barge brought the Susan Rose to the surface Nov. 19, a year and two days after the 77-foot dragger ran aground on the beach while heading in for Manasquan Inlet.
After the 2023 grounding, the fishing boat’s crew of four safely got off onto the beach, dropping down from the deck with help from Point Pleasant Beach emergency responders.
Efforts to defuel, lighter and salvage the boat began that day and the Dann Towing 85’x30’x11.5’ tugboat Shannon Dann got underway from Staten Island in anticipation of a high tide for the recovery effort. The initial salvage was commissioned by The Town Dock of Narragansett, R.I., owners of the Susan Rose.
That original plan last year was to move the boat off the beach after its fuel and oil tanks were safely emptied, then tow it to a Staten Island shipyard for repair. But during the move, the boat took on water and sank in 48 feet of water about 3,000 feet off the beach.
Built in 1977 by Steiner Shipyard in Bayou La Batre, Ala., the 77’x23’ 142 gwt Susan Rose was one of the Town Dock commercial fleet, homeported at Point Judith, R.I., and frequently working out at other Northeast ports depending on fishing seasons.
The week-long salvage work by Resolve and Northstar Marine also involved the Coast Guard and local partner agencies, including the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, state police Office of Emergency Management, Ocean County Sheriff’s Department Office of Emergency Management and the Point Pleasant Beach Police Department.
Before any next steps those authorities will assess the material condition of the Susan Rose, tied up at a dock on Channel Drive in Point Pleasant Beach. That fueled speculation in the port that the Susan Rose could be bound for the sea floor again, as an addition to an artificial reef.
In summer 2022 a deckhand on the Susan Rose went overboard in the early morning hours of July 1, 2022 as the boat was passing Nomans Land on its way to New Bedford, Mass., according to news reports at the time. A two-day Coast Guard search found no sign of the 54-year-old man.
