If we just leave it alone, could the abandoned boat (a.k.a. Deep Thought, a.k.a. Milwaukee’s S.S. Minnow) just stay forever? Like a weird, dilapidated, five-ton, semi-dangerous tourist attraction?
It’s hard to imagine public officials being OK with that. But at the same time, no local governments seem to want to take responsibility for the situation.
Legally speaking, it is the responsibility of the owner of an abandoned boat to remove it. But if a boat owner truly abandons their property, who’s on call for cleanup duty? The DNR, Coast Guard, and both the city and county all told me that it isn’t their deal.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Fast Facts
WHAT: Deep Thought is a 33-foot Chris-Craft Roamer.
WHO: The boat is owned by a Mississippi couple, Richard and Sherry Wells, who say they planned to retire on the boat and were soon going to coast down the Mississippi River when everything seemingly went wrong.
WHEN: The Wellses told local reporters that they were caught in a storm and ran aground Oct. 13.
WHERE: The boat is stuck in the sand about 15 feet from shore between Bradford Beach and McKinley Beach, and is visible from Lincoln Memorial Drive.
Hot potato
When I started looking into the boat situation, I asked U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Santiago Tamburini what the plan was. He said that since there isn’t an immediate threat related to 1) safety, 2) pollution or 3) navigation, then it’s not the Coast Guard’s responsibility. “Ask the DNR,” he says. So I did, but a Department of National Resources rep. replied to my email by saying simply that “The DNR is not overseeing this case. Please check with the City of Milwaukee.”
However, the city’s director of communications, Jeff Fleming, told me, “The boat is on county land, so I’m assuming the county would be the governmental entity that would take over.” Sigh.
The county wasn’t much help either. Allison Carlson, field marketing coordinator for Milwaukee County Parks, said in an email: “The boat is on lake bed, encased in ice – meaning that it will still be in the water when temps warm, not on Parks land. The salvage company is still attempting to free it, but they cannot free it until the weather warms and the ice melts.”
The only entity that’s actually tried freeing the boat thus far has been Jerry’s Salvage, a company hired by the owners of the boat, Mississippians Richard and Sherry Wells.
Jerry Guyer of Jerry’s Salvage remains committed to getting the boat removed once the ice melts, but he says he’s already spent the equivalent of at least $20,000 trying unsuccessfully to pull Deep Thought free. There’s no guarantee he will succeed in spring. The Wellses have apparently cut off all communication with Guyer and local authorities, so it’s unclear if Guyer will ever be compensated for his team’s efforts thus far. Guyer told me that the only solution may be hiring a crane to lift it out, which will certainly damage the boat beyond repair. This is because of how deeply stuck into the sand the boat is. Moving it even an inch just causes more sand to collapse in around the keel.
Where does the buck stop?
OK, so: Is it nobody’s responsibility to remove the boat if the owners have truly abandoned it? Is this just a gray area in the law where it truly is nobody’s job to re-pristine-ify our beaches when a random boat washes up between two popular beaches?
A couple active case studies across the Badger State indicate this may be the case.
The Journal Sentinel on Jan. 30 reported on “Sweet Destiny,” a 54-footer stuck along the St. Croix River near Hudson. Destiny was reportedly abandoned by her owner, Grayson McNew, in summer 2024. And, despite $50,000 in fines, McNew refuses to attempt retrieval. Hudson’s mayor, Rich O’Connor, told JS Reporter Madeline Heim that he plans on pressuring state legislators to make it a criminal act to abandon a boat, especially considering Hudson taxpayers usually are stuck footing the bill for removal of abandoned vessels.
320 miles due east of Hudson in Door County, there’s also a much larger (albeit engineless) 500-ton tugboat that’s been stuck near Baileys Harbor for four years. It was supposed to be sold for scrap. But, when things went south, its owner – like the Wellses and McNew – stopped working with local government.
That marks at least three noteworthy abandoned boats in Wisconsin’s waters with uncertain futures, because there aren’t really any laws on the books requiring removal of derelict vessels. I reached out to the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau to confirm this, and was directed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Abandoned and Derelict Vessels Info Hub. The NOAA concludes that “Wisconsin does not have a formal or funded program to address abandoned or derelict vessels. The State does have a collection of laws that address abandoned and unattended vessels, obstructions to navigation and public nuisances.”
Further, “Any city, village, town, or county in Wisconsin may dispose of any private property that has been abandoned or unclaimed for more than 30 days … The property can be disposed of by any means determined to be in the best interest of the city, village, town, or county.”
It is important to note that while the city or county “can” remove Deep Thought, there’s no obligation here. There appears to be no requirement for anyone to ensure that the boat doesn’t remain forever.
All removal and disposal costs are supposed to be borne by the abandoners of a boat, but that can be tough to enforce. Just look at what’s happening in Hudson and Baileys Harbor. This is paralleled by the Deep Thought situation, as the Wellses appear to have returned home to Mississippi and are apparently unable to afford the $20,000+ they already owe to Jerry’s Salvage.
Whether you call the heavily graffitied boat an eyesore or a landmark, in the end this may come down to whoever gets fed up with it first: the city or the county. Or it could come down to some collaboration between the two to share the financial burden of hiring the crane or finding some other way to get rid of the thing.
