GULFPORT, Fla. — On the night of November 11, 2020, Hurricane Eta battered the shoreline of southern Pinellas County city Gulfport, leaving multiple boats grounded from east of the historic Gulfport Casino west to the public beach.
What You Need To Know
- Several sailboats were beached in Gulfport, Florida during Hurricane Eta in November
- One massive craft remained on the beach for more than 90 days
- Crews finally removed the giant sailboat by cutting it into pieces
Most of the craft were trucked away in the following days as the city righted itself. One large sailboat, however—the steel-hulled, 25-ton Hai Long—remained on the sand near the city’s popular volleyball facilities for more than 90 days as officials tried to figure out how to move it. The craft was too heavy for the cranes employed to move other boats, and an attempt to tow it back out to sea using multiple power boats was unsuccessful.
So it sat there, for three months, attracting seagulls, gawkers and painters, becoming as part of Gulfport’s funky charm as the art shops and beach bars, until a salvage crew began cutting its massive frame into pieces light enough to cart away in dumpsters and on flatbed trucks.
On Thursday, February 11, workers lifted the final piece of the behemoth—full half of its weighty hull—onto an enormous tractor trailer bed for its trip to the scrapyard. The final stages of removal came just in time for this weekend’s annual Tampa Bay Beach Bums volleyball tournament at the adjacent courts, which had been cordoned off for the past several days during the operation.
The city—and its residents—will reportedly eat the cost of its removal; the Gulfport Municipal Marina did not respond to a request for comment by deadline, but an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter put the cost of the project at more than $10,000.
The craft was the subject of much spectacle and speculation as it sat on the sand; retirees and snowbirds took to watching the crew’s progress like it was a ball game. Crowds gathered along Shore Boulevard to watch the hefty final section being strapped into place under the afternoon sun, before resuming their walks. And while the boat itself may finally be gone, the memories of the destruction wrought by Eta remain, for this community, very fresh in mind.