Vandals Are Taking Apart Beached Boat
Top of vessel now gone as owners and public authorities are MIA.
The S.S. Minnow without its hard top. Photo by Sophie Bolich.
If you’ve been putting off a trip to see the boat stuck on Milwaukee’s lakefront, don’t wait. Her condition is rapidly deteriorating.
The “S.S. Minnow” has been beached for more than six months, but it’s unclear how much longer the vessel will endure.
The hard top frame atop the vessel was removed this week. Much of it now rests approximately a dozen feet away near the edge of the rocks.
When we last shared images of the boat in December, there was limited graffiti visible and no obvious broken glass. It appeared ready to float down to Mississippi, as owners Richard and Sherry Wells had originally intended.
But the frame is now red, as a result of layers of graffiti mucking it up, and there isn’t any glass to be seen.
Who is responsible for the boat remains a source of mystery.
The Wellses have returned to Mississippi and quit returning calls from anyone, including Jerry Guyer, who once tried to free the boat for them and previously said he invested $18,000 in the effort.
The City of Milwaukee says the boat is on county property. County Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman, in a newsletter, said the county’s attorneys are working to outline who is responsible and he is working to ensure the county doesn’t have to foot the bill. The U.S. Coast Guard has taken a hands-off approach because it determined there is no fuel that is leaking (it got stuck after the Wellses ran out of fuel).
Last week, Milwaukee Police Department Harbor Patrol officers told the Harbor Commission that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was fining the Wellses hundreds of dollars per day for abandoning the boat. The DNR told Urban Milwaukee no such citations have been issued and the DNR hasn’t taken any legal action.
The rumor mirrored one that the Wellses themselves once offered: the Coast Guard was fining them approximately $400 per day. The Coast Guard said that wasn’t true.
All of which still leaves Milwaukee with an abandoned boat, though one that is gradually turning into trash.
S.S. Minnow in December 2024. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
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It is unbelievable that they cannot find…and fine…the crapsies out of the boat owner. How dumb is the County? The Coast Guard? The courts? Add this to the inability of our County Government to do their job…or find the right person or agency that can.
I agree with you, DAGDAG…how in God’s name can no one make the owners pay. I mean, we fine and collect on much lesser crimes…Cripes…
That photo is striking: “Deep Thought” vandalized, abandoned, and aground in the shallows of our water.