Marooned motor yacht removed from St. Croix’s Beer Can Island

A crew of four men used pumps and riverboat know-how on Friday morning to pull the 54-foot motor yacht Sweet Destiny off of Beer Can Island in Hudson, Wis., drawing to a close a shipwreck tale that inspired internet memes, political debates about abandoned watercraft and pointed anger at the man who parked it there last summer.

It took about three hours of pumping water to get the boat floating, said Dave Jarvis, whose family owns the St. Croix River Cruises company and the Afton House Inn. The vessel was then lashed to the side of a barge and ferried to the River Cruises company dock in Hudson.

“It was just the right thing to do,” Jarvis said, when asked why he and his father, Gordy, stepped in. “It’s been a community embarrassment for the St. Croix Valley.”

The two-story white boat became a river landmark, and then a headache for local officials who have grown weary of abandoned boats left for the city to haul out and store. The boat’s prominence rose with social media commentary and calls for state laws that would criminalize boat abandonment.

A close examination Friday found a crippling leak around the boat’s rudder. Once Sweet Destiny is made more seaworthy, Jarvis said, it will be towed about 25 miles downriver to be hauled out and put into storage.

Whether the boat ends up in a junkyard or back on the water may depend on the state of its engines, said Rick Arndt, a semiretired carpenter who wants to restore it the same way he’s restored old houses. In April, he tried unsuccessfully to rescue Sweet Destiny using house wrap and big pumps.

After that failed, Arndt said he and the Jarvis family reached out to Wayne Prokosch and Josh Stokes of River City Welding in Stockholm Wis., who drove upriver with a barge and crane, equipment more suited to resurfacing sunken boats. Arndt said he helped pay for the operation, handing a $6,300 cashier’s check to Prokosch last weekend, and hopes to have first rights to claim Sweet Destiny if it’s deemed worthy of restoration.

The question of who owns the boat isn’t clear.

When it was stuck on the island, the boat was disowned by Grayson McNew, the man who parked the boat there in August after it started to take on water. Bill Warren, a treasure hunter from Alabama, claimed he bought it from McNew for a couple hundred dollars last fall. Warren several weeks ago said he no longer has an interest in the boat.

Arndt said he spoke with both of them before attempting his rescue of the boat.

The boat’s extraction from Beer Can Island means it no longer threatens to become a problem for the city of Hudson. The city impound lot already has four abandoned boats and Hudson Mayor Rich O’Connor has been determined to avoid adding a fifth.

Joyful at the news of the boat’s removal, O’Connor said he went to the riverfront Friday morning to watch as Sweet Destiny was pulled off the island and tied up to a dock.

The Hudson City Council last year passed a new city ordinance that calls for daily fines against boat owners who leave their watercraft on the river.

McNew became the first person ever fined under the ordinance and saw the city’s assessment climb to some $21,000 last fall before the daily fines were suspended over the winter. The fines were restarted some three weeks ago, according to City Administrator Brentt Michalek, adding another roughly $20,000 to McNew’s tab.

Arndt said he’s asked the city if it would lower the fines against McNew if Arndt got the boat removed from its island perch. Michalek said Friday the city may be amenable to negotiations over the fine amount.

“Our main goal is to get it out of the water and get it gone, but also we wish to make sure that that type of behavior is not acceptable from anybody,” he said. “Going forward, people need to know that you could face large fines for doing something like that.”