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Old 08-21-2019, 09:56 PM
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Read the Sun Sentinel's award-winning journalism

FINAL MOORING FOR 'ANCIENT MARINER,' IT'S 'WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE.'
STEPHEN d`OLIVEIRA, Staff Writer
SUN-SENTINEL

The Ancient Mariner, a once-proud U.S. Coast Guard cutter that became an albatross as a floating restaurant, slipped beneath the surface of the sea on Sunday.

The 165-foot ship was scuttled in 70 feet of water off Deerfield Beach just south of the Palm Beach County line to become South Florida's newest artificial reef.

The vessel's final journey began at 6:02 a.m. on Sunday when Grady Marine tugboat operators gingerly pulled the ship away from its New River berth in Fort Lauderdale.

Once off Deerfield Beach, the boat was anchored and two starboard doors were removed to allow water to enter.

It took nearly 90 minutes for the 57-year-old vessel to fill with water and disappear from sight. When it did, at 1:26 p.m., the top wooden deck and bar erupted to the surface, obliterating the metal frame superstructure.

The sinking was complicated by a squall that kicked up 4- to 6-foot seas.

"We did what we had to do," said Steve Somerville, artificial reef coordinator for Broward County's Office of Natural Resource Protection.

In one sense, a ship is nothing more than sheets of steel welded together at the seams. In another, it is much more: It's a place where men and women work, live and sometimes die.

As a warship, the Nemesis, named after the Greek goddess of vengeance, was crewed by Coast Guardsmen who rescued Cuban refugees and hunted German submarines.

As a floating restaurant, the ship was crewed by bartenders who popped open cold beers and waitresses who served hot plates of Fisherman's Spaghetti.

It was where more than 100 people contracted hepatitis in 1986.

It was the platform from which the ashes of one of the ship's original crew members were scattered onto the waters.

It was where a young Cuban refugee, not quite 2 years old, once cavorted around the deck without a thread of clothing.

The vessel was one of 18 patrol cutters, all named after Greek mythological figures, built between 1931 and 1934 to stop illegal alcohol pouring into the United States during Prohibition.

The Nemesis, however, never stopped any rum-runners. Prohibition ended in 1933, a year before it was launched.

In January 1942, one month after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the Nemesis joined the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Coastal Fleet. In its first action, the Nemesis dropped depth charges off the St. Lucie Inlet on what crew members thought was a Nazi U-boat.

"It is possible the charges were dropped on the wreck of the Pan Massachusetts," declassified Coast Guard records state.

While serving as a convoy escort in the Gulf of Mexico between Texas and Florida in August 1942, the Nemesis again dropped depth charges on a suspected enemy sub. Mud, oil and air bubbled to the surface, but no wreckage was seen.

"German records uncovered after the war indicated that the U-166 had been sunk by (the) Coast Guard" in that area, military records state.

Newspaper accounts credited the Nemesis with sinking the first German submarine in U.S. waters.

After the war ended, the Nemesis resumed patrol duties out of St. Petersburg. In time, however, the country would face a problem as thousands of Cubans fled to Florida after Castro seized power in 1959.

On one rescue mission in the early 1960s, the ship picked up 37 refugees huddled in a small, broken-down boat. Many were dehydrated and suffering from diarrhea.

One of the youngest was a boy about 16 months old. Before letting him board the ship, the child's mother ripped away his soiled diaper.

"They handed him up naked," said Marc Welliver, the Nemesis' commanding officer between 1962 and 1964.

He also remembers what was perhaps the ship's most unusual mission: scattering the ashes of an ex-Nemesis crew member from the ship's gray deck.

Welliver said the former officer had been the Coast Guard's inspector at the West Virginia shipyard when the Nemesis was under construction, and later served as its first chief engineer.

"We scattered his ashes in lower Tampa Bay," Welliver said.

After three decades of Coast Guard duty, the ship was decommissioned in November 1964.

After its diesel engines were removed, the Nemesis was sold in 1966 to Auto- Marine Engineers, which towed it to the Miami River.

Lambert Hooper, president of the Miami company, said an Aruba outfit hired his firm to put new engines in the ship so it could transport cargo to the Caribbean.

"We were in the middle of repowering the vessel when the folks got caught hauling contraband with another ship," Hooper said. "All work stopped. The whole thing went into litigation."

In 1979, investors purchased the vessel and spent $500,000 remodeling it to resemble a three-deck African steamer. It was renamed Livingstone's Landing, after Dr. David Livingstone, the famed Congo River Valley explorer.

The ship was brought from Miami to the New River just east of the Southeast Third Avenue bridge in August 1979 and became Fort Lauderdale's first floating restaurant.

Livingstone's Landing closed in February 1981, but plans were soon made to reopen as the Ancient Mariner. Then disaster struck.

At 6:20 a.m. on April 28, 1981, the vessel rolled over on its port side after water seeped in through several finger-sized rust holes in the hull.

The Ancient Mariner, simply called "The Boat" by many, became popular after it was repaired and returned to its berth within two months.

In the spring of 1986, however, an even bigger catastrophe made it very unpopular.

In March, April and May, a worker who prepared salads spread hepatitis A to more than 100 people, causing the largest food-borne outbreak of hepatitis in Florida history. The victims included five other workers and 97 restaurant patrons from 11 states. The restaurant closed on May 22.

Publicity about the outbreak sank the Ancient Mariner as a restaurant. The owners filed for bankruptcy.

Over the next few years, restaurants operated aboard briefly as Chapman's River Raw Bar, the Anchorage Seafood House, Dockside 501 and Cutters.

Faced with eviction, the ship's owner, Tom Quinn, placed the vessel up for auction in March of this year. Two Mississippi businessmen wanted to convert the ship into a riverboat gambling house, but it was eventually bought by the South Florida Divers Club of Hollywood for $6,000.

U.S CGC NEMESIS

Length: 165 feet

Beam: 25 feet

Displacement: 337 tons

Main engines: 2 Winston Diesels

Maximum speed: 14 knots

Cost: $258,000

Shipbuilder: Marietta Manufacturing, Point Pleasant, WV.

SOURCE: U.S Coast Guard

CHRONOLOGY

-- 1934: The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Nemesis is launched in July 1934 from Point Pleasant, W.Va., a town on the Ohio River..

-- 1942: The ship joins the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Coastal Fleet and hunts Nazi subs during the war.

-- 1964: After serving the Coast Guard for 30 years, the aging ship is decommissioned in St. Petersburg.

-- 1966: The Nemesis is sold for $20,000 to a Miami marine company, which moves the vessel to the Miami River, where it sits for 13 years.

-- 1979: The ship is sold and converted into a floating restaurant. It is towed to Fort Lauderdale and renamed Livingstone's Landing.

-- 1981: The restaurant closes in February, and before it reopens as the Ancient Mariner, the ship sinks at its berth. The ship is salvaged, reopens and becomes a popular dining spot.

-- 1986: A kitchen worker infected with hepatitis A spreads it to more than 100 restaurant patrons and workers. The restaurant closes but reopens over next three years as Chapman's River Raw Bar, Anchorage Seafood House, Dockside 501 and Cutters.

-- 1989: Cutters, last business to occupy vessel, closes Halloween night.

-- 1991: The South Florida Divers Club of Hollywood buys the ship for $6,000 and donates it to Broward County's Artificial Reef Program."

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl...120-story.html



From: https://www.floridamemory.com
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Last edited by ricki; 08-22-2019 at 09:43 AM.
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