When is a Sailing Boat Not Worth Having?

by Jim Stingl, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/Sail-World on 19 Nov 2007 When is a sailing boat not worth having? ANSWER: When you've put it onto the rocks so badly that even the salvagers don't want to retrieve it, let alone the owner, who can't be found. Jim Stingl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tells of just such a boat you can see any Milwaukee day:

Pavel Bernek had ambitious and romantic plans for the vintage sailboat Falcon he lovingly restored.

But he never got it out of Milwaukee. If you've driven along Lincoln Memorial Drive lately, you've probably seen the abandoned boat stuck in the rocks and bathtub-depth water maybe 100 yards out into Lake Michigan just north of Bradford Beach.

People keep calling the Coast Guard and the police, thinking someone out there may need help.

The 34-foot sailboat, the Falcon, has been tilted and wedged in the rocks for more than two weeks, and Bernek apparently is in no hurry to rescue it. The Coast Guard and the Department of Natural Resources can't reach him, and neither can I.

'The man has no insurance. He seems reluctant to pay us for the three days we've got into the job already,' said Jerry Guyer from the local salvage company Pirate's Cove Diving.

$2,000 so far and perhaps $10,000 when and if the job is done, Guyer said. Three of his own boats were damaged trying to get to the sailboat in the treacherously shallow water.

'You can get close to land anywhere in Milwaukee except there. You can't get within 1,000 feet of the shoreline without hitting rocks that are just below the surface,' Guyer said.

DNR warden supervisor Rick Reed said the owner could be fined about $500 a day that the boat sits out there after 30 days have passed. But fines are a last resort; it's preferable to use the money for salvage costs, he said.

The Coast Guard has no plans to fetch the boat because it's not considered a barrier to navigation or an environmental hazard, despite the diesel fuel and motor oil it contains, said Senior Chief Chris Purdy from the Milwaukee station. 'The case is closed, from our perspective,' he said.

The Coast Guard and Milwaukee police rescued Bernek and another man from the boat when it ran aground. Rafts were used to get them to safety.

The man who knows the most about Bernek and his plans is Gene Cramer from Cramer Marine in Milwaukee. He owns a similar boat, known as a Chinook 34, and Bernek kept his vessel in Cramer's boatyard from March to September.

The cockpit and parts of the deck were rebuilt. A new mast and rigging were added. Fresh paint was applied. Bernek and his friends spent many long weekends working on the fiberglass and wood boat, which was built in the 1950s. Cramer estimated it was worth about $10,000 when they were finished.

Bernek, who is 40ish, is from the Czech Republic and has been staying in the United States on a work visa. He was living somewhere in the Chicago area and working as a painting contractor.

And he had a sweetheart. 'Their plan,' Cramer said, 'was for Pavel to restore this vessel, learn to sail, cross the ocean, pick her up in Europe and return to the warm waters of the Caribbean and beyond.'

But he failed to consult the charts of Lake Michigan that clearly show areas to avoid. There are no warning buoys on the water, and lake levels are very low.

Guyer is not so sure he can get the boat out of there in one piece. Last summer, he resorted to chain saws to cut up a similarly stuck mint-condition boat. The pieces were hauled to the dump.

But the longer it sits there, the more damage it will sustain from wind and waves and vandals and eventually ice.

In the meantime, Milwaukeean Brook Scheiber, who is more of a kayaker, has asked the Coast Guard about acquiring the crippled boat for himself.

'I know a little about maritime salvage laws, and it was my belief that if one finds a derelict and abandoned vessel afloat in the sea and physically claims it, the vessel becomes theirs,' he said.

Probably not, said Coast Guard Lt. Commander Joe Malinauskas. 'This ain't the high seas out here,' he said.

Besides, the boat is pretty much ruined, or will be by the time it's pulled out over the rocks, Cramer said.

'It's not worth anything. What it would cost you to get that out of there, you'd never get it back,' he said.

Cramer waxed poetic after gazing at the ill-fated sailboat sitting out on there on the waves and the giant rocks.

'She is ironically being cradled by the very demons that ended her life. The wind and waves have now turned her bow toward shore, as if to say I want to go home, won't somebody please rescue me from this fate.'

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