The Final Voyage of Deep Thought

Deep Thought aka S.S. Minnow. Photo taken May 6, 2024 by Graham Kilmer.

The boat is gone. Finally.

After more than six months on Milwaukee’s shoreline, the boat called Deep Thought, and known locally as the S.S. Minnow, has been hoisted off the beach.

After several failed attempts to remove the boat by a private salvager, Milwaukee County officials decided in recent weeks to get involved. Sup. Sheldon Wasserman who represents the area on the county board, started calling for the county to remove the boat.

A number of towing companies reached out to the supervisor, offering their services, but the county ultimately decided to partner with All City Towing, a local firm that works with the county’s highway department.

“While the community has been extremely intrigued by the presence of this boat for many months now, this situation has become a public safety hazard that has required a real solution,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said at a press conference late in the afternoon after the boat had been successfully pulled into position to be loaded onto a truck for removal. 

The All City crews arrived early Tuesday morning and began pumping water out of the hull. Before noon, the crew had made more progress than any previous attempt. They had managed to turn the boat’s bow around, facing west, toward the rocks. They began cutting holes into the sides of the hull, and then pulling through heavy cables suspended from three heavy-duty towing trucks.

Just before 2 p.m. Sup. Wasserman arrived at the site. During the past month he had expressed concern about the boat becoming a safety hazard, worried someone would fall off and hurt themselves, or fall into the water and drown.

“It’s on the rocks right now, and it’s moving in the right direction,” he said. “So I’m very happy to see this.”`

Slowly, very slowly, the All City crew inched the boat up and over the rocks, maintaining enough upward tension to lift and pull it just over the tops of the rocks without completely destroying the hull. Air powered jacks pushed from the bottom. The weight was so great the cables began ripping long tears through the sides of the hull.

“It’s way heavier than we ever imagined,” said Jeff Pillar, owner of All City Towing. “It’s probably close to about 75,000 pounds with all the mud inside.”

About two weeks prior, local salvager Jerry Guyer made a final attempt to dislodge and remove the boat. His crew tried pumping air beneath the boat to release the suction that had formed in the wet sand. A pontoon barge was brought over and the plan was to winch the boat out of the sand. But it didn’t work, and the Lake Michigan waves eventually crashed the pontoon into the shoreline. The pontoon was the first thing All City Towing removed this morning.

Back when the boat was first abandoned, it didn’t take long for it to arouse local curiosity and become an attraction. It became a site to visit. Graffiti artists took a particular interest in the vessel, spraying layers of tags over the boat. And this removal operation, well publicized ahead of time, drew a large crowd.

Hundreds filtered in and out of the park all day. Drones buzzed overhead. People walked their dogs down, pushed their toddlers down in strollers. Some brought chairs and coolers. Some were drinking beer. Bicyclists and rollerbladers took advantage of the Lincoln Memorial Drive closure. The crowd hummed with salvage talk: skepticism about the new plan, ideas for how they would remove the boat, some chat about the provenance of the infamous David Gruber tag — did the personal injury lawyer pay for it?

One man was walking around with a loaf of sourdough bread, offering chunks to onlookers. His name is Jason Legear. He, like others, was skeptical the boat would be removed. He’d visited the boat off and on since the winter and followed the coverage by local publication Milwaukee Record. Just the other day he and his wife, who is pregnant, did a photo shoot in front of the boat.

“Everybody in the city’s been watching this thing,” he said. “Keeping an eye on it, laughing a little bit, and that’s why so many people are out here today… after so many failed attempts it has developed like a mythic status of its own.”

Three young men had come down and, using a large rock as a table top, set up drinks and cheese and other snacks. One, John Lenz, suggested some type of memorial or plaque be erected in honor of the boat.

Sup. Shawn Rolland, one of the county board members who started calling for the boat to go, was happy to see the boat “lugged out of the water” and happy that the beautiful weather, and all it portends for Milwaukee’s lakefront, has finally arrived.

“It’s been fun for a lot of people to watch,” Rolland said. “It’s a happy distraction, maybe, from everything that’s going on in the world.”

What’s next for Deep Thought, aka the S.S. Minnow? The All City tow yard. Now, county officials and their lawyers will have to figure out who will pay for the removal. There’s something murky about the vessel’s ownership and, without getting “too deep into the weeds,” County Executive Crowley said it wasn’t clear who bears financial responsibility.

Private, anonymous donors had previously stepped forward. City of Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson held a press conference in April to announce there was a donor will to fund the salvage. The Hoan Foundation has also reportedly offered some funding.

What happens to the boat next is anyone’s guess.

Crowley considered the question.”I would say that, jokingly, this may be a revenue option, right?” he mused. 

“Can we sell pieces of this boat?”

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