How to locate sunken mast in marina? sonar?

[albergsailor]

What im trying to do really shouldnt be that difficult. Google has been zero help. There has to be some cheap sonar device that i can buy to help me find my sunken mast. The marina is not super big but big enough that i think some type of electrical equipment will be needed as it is unclear where exactly the boat was dismasted in the marina. where only talking about 9ft of water here! Its a 45ft mast how hard can it be to find in a marina!! Here in ohio there dont seem to be many/any salvage/scuba/ recovery companies and i would rather buy sonar, fishfinder? ect than pay them to do it.

[tamicatana]

get a grapnel and drag?

[MarkJ]

Put on cement shoes and wald along the bottom till you stub your toe.


Have you got a scuba ticket?

[albergsailor]

i was thinking about something like that, something kinda like an anchor but i figured an anchor would get stuck. So the word for that is a grapnal. Ok im gonna try and find a grapnal haha! I wonder if west marine sells that. Just checked and they do its a grapnal anchor? Still wish i cud get some kinda electrical device to make the job easier...

[LakeSuperior]

A mast if laying right on the bottom will only stand 4 to 6 inches proud if the bottom is firm. Hard to spot with sonar.

I would start by dragging a grappling hook in a gridded search pattern you can cover a lot of ground in the short time with two people in a dingy.

Hold the line by hand and you can feel the bottom and you will feel the mast even if you don't hook it. This will take some patience but a 45 foot mast should be easily found.

[svlamorocha]

Originally Posted by albergsailor

What im trying to do really shouldnt be that difficult. Google has been zero help. There has to be some cheap sonar device that i can buy to help me find my sunken mast. The marina is not super big but big enough that i think some type of electrical equipment will be needed as it is unclear where exactly the boat was dismasted in the marina. where only talking about 9ft of water here! Its a 45ft mast how hard can it be to find in a marina!! Here in ohio there dont seem to be many/any salvage/scuba/ recovery companies and i would rather buy sonar, fishfinder? ect than pay them to do it.

Many years ago a friend and I managed to sink a Snipe dinghy in 20ft of lake water and we managed to locate it by dragging 40ft by 1/4in steel bars (as used for concrete) with a 135-degree hook in the bottom end. We went back and forth in a pattern (easier to do now with GPS) until we hooked one of the shrouds. You may want to try the same..

Cheers
C

[Bash]

sonar won't do it. You'd either need a magnetometer or UW metal detector, assuming the mast is metal.

Hard to believe there isn't a scuba shop somewhere there in Ohio where you could find a salvage diver willing to make a quick $100. Would certainly be cheaper than purchasing a towable magnetometer.

Curiosity has the best of me as to how someone can be dismasted in a marina but not know where the mast went down. Is there a story here?

[Teknav]

...mast got tired of standing up and it jumped ship... Mauritz

[roverhi]

Just can't resist. How did you manage to lose the stick in the harbor??

[albergsailor]

The story is sandy. I was there the night of the storm taking care of my previous boat which survived without nearly a scratch.. I now own this dismasted boat a bayfield 32. It had broke free from its lines and the boat had apparently rubbed up against a cable long enough to shear the mast off about 4 ft up from the deck as if someone cut it with a sawzaw!! crazy i know. Nobody saw where she was dismasted. This marina in cleveland had somewhere around 30 plus boats sink that night. The marina is not open this year. There is not a TRACE of the marina left as it has all been removed to be rebuilt which should make the dragnet even easier.

[ranger58sb]

Metal detector? There are volunteer groups around, with members who enjoy searching for stuff...

-Chris

[kthoennes]

Okay so now I have to ask: why are you looking for a big piece of a mast broken clean off? Are you thinking of re-using the pieces somehow?

[albergsailor]

lost internet for a minute there.. well for one its got all the rigging on it. And yea i was thinking of possibly having an extrusion made for it to fit inside the 2 broken pieces. I mean isnt that how they fix the mast?. At first i totally dismissed that idea and will most likely be getting a mast, ect from another boat i already got the stuff lined up for pretty cheap.

[Dennis.G]

In just 9 foot of water could likely locate just using:
Bathyscopes – Underwater Viewing Fun | Ocean Fare

Of course you would still need to dive in and tie a rope to it. In 9' should be able to just hold breath and swim on down to it. Hardest part likely hauling it up from bottom and getting it to shore.

[valhalla360]

If they cleared everything out to rebuild the marina...are you sure they didn't already pull the mast at the same time and cart it off?