LoveBug, the yacht that overturned and partially sank at the mouth of the West River in late July, is finally headed north out of the Chesapeake Bay.
Salvage vessels from Donjon Marine Co., the New Jersey-based firm that worked to raise the yacht over the last two weeks, departed from the West River with the LoveBug in tow shortly before sunrise Saturday morning, according to VesselFinder, a marine traffic site.
The fleet which included two tugs, crane barges and the yacht, passed under the Bay Bridge just after 8:30 a.m.
The LoveBug is being towed alongside the Farrell 256, a 200-foot crane barge, for safety, as the yacht is a “dead ship,” or a vessel without power, said Steven Newes, senior vice president of Donjon.
On Monday, Newes said the salvage team planned to tow the yacht north through the bay and the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to the mouth of the Maurice River in New Jersey. Departure was expected to happen Tuesday, with delivery to a smaller vessel for transport to a shipyard along the river originally slated for Wednesday evening.
Why the salvage team’s voyage was delayed is unclear.
The vessels’ departure marks the end of several weeks of work to raise and free the submerged LoveBug from the muddy bottom of the West River. The LoveBug had settled into the mud “quite a bit,” Newes said, complicating efforts to place slings underneath the yacht to lift it.
Mud was also found inside the yacht once it was lifted, Newes said, which needed to be removed to patch the yacht and “render it safely afloat” for towing.
Until salvage crews pulled the LoveBug from the water, the yacht had remained aground in the same location between Beverly Beach and Shady Side for almost four weeks. Though the yacht was originally resting on its starboard, or right, side, it rolled some before salvage began.
The Italian-built yacht was sailing south on the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis on July 27 when it began to tip over. The Coast Guard received a Mayday call at 12:36 p.m., but by the time crews arrived, the five people on board had been rescued by a good Samaritan and a nearby towboat. Paramedics tended to two of the passengers, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, but both declined to be treated.
The LoveBug, which cost between $110,000 and $125,000 to charter for a week, was not operating as a charter when it overturned, said Hunter Dortenzo, a Natural Resources Police spokesperson.
Though VesselFinder, a marine traffic site, indicated the LoveBug is owned by Bees Honey LLC, a limited liability company based in the Marshall Islands, Federal Communications Commission records show otherwise.
The yacht’s shipboard radio station license is registered to Jabulani Charter Florida, a Florida-based limited liability company with a Rockville mailing address. The licensee should be the vessel owner, according to an FCC spokesperson. Efforts to reach the person listed as the licensee were unsuccessful.
The Natural Resources Police and the National Transportation Safety Board are conducting separate investigations into what happened to the yacht.
