Nov 10, 2026 · https://x.com/myrtlebeachnews
The Miss Sandra Gail worked local waters for decades, then sat rusting in a Little River marsh. On Monday, SCDNR sent her to the bottom on purpose, with Horry County money paying for the prep. Here’s what that means for anglers, divers and the next abandoned boat in line.
For more than 20 years, a steel-hulled shrimp boat named the Miss Sandra Gail worked the waters off the North Strand. On Monday, Nov. 9, she made one last trip out past the Little River jetties. This time she didn’t come back, becoming an Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat.
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) towed the boat about 10 miles offshore and sank her at the Little River Offshore Reef, a site the agency calls PA-02. The 53-foot vessel had been found abandoned in a Little River marsh. Now it adds roughly 22,000 cubic feet of hard structure for sponges, corals, algae and fish.
This incident highlights the issues surrounding abandoned vessels in our waterways, particularly the Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat, emphasizing the necessity for proactive measures to manage and repurpose such boats.
On the surface it’s a feel-good story: a rusting eyesore becomes a fishing hole. But the sinking also shows how South Carolina is dealing with a much bigger problem. Derelict boats are piling up in our creeks and marshes, the state has a new law aimed at them, and Horry County’s legislative delegation is now spending public money to clear them. That raises questions about how many more boats are waiting, what it costs, and why so few of them can get the same ending the Miss Sandra Gail did.
The boat has deep local roots. Terry Grant told MyHorryNews that his uncle and aunt, Layton and Vivian Tharpe, built her in 1981 and named her after his cousin, Sandra Gail. Grant’s father, Kerry Jackson, bought the boat in 2000, and the two of them ran it for more than two decades until Jackson’s health failed.
After that, the boat went to new owners, who eventually walked away from it. According to the same report, she broke free of her moorings and settled into the marsh. That’s the same way many derelict vessels end up stranded along the Grand Strand.
SCDNR’s Law Enforcement Division flagged the boat as possibly abandoned and contacted the family, who agreed to donate it to the agency’s Marine Artificial Reef Program. Lance Cpl. Joel Chanaca said at a Monday news conference at the Windjammer dock that the family said yes right away. Grant called the day bittersweet. He took comfort in knowing that nobody can rename the boat now that she’s on the bottom.
That family history matters for more than sentiment. Most abandoned boats show up with no owner, no paperwork and nobody to sign them over. The Miss Sandra Gail had a clear ownership trail and a family willing to donate her. Without that, this project likely would have been much harder.
This wasn’t a quick job. SCDNR officials said the whole process took about three years. Reef coordinator Kevin Spanik told WMBF that much of that time went into choosing the right spot. The agency worked with Coastal Scuba to place the boat in an empty patch between existing features at the site, partly to improve the area for the local dive industry.
The hands-on work took about a month. Crews stripped out fuel, oil and wood paneling, and they dealt with openings that could trap sea life [WPDE, 2026]. That cleaning is standard practice. SCDNR has long said every vessel bound for a reef goes through thorough cleaning before it’s sunk [SCDNR, 2019].
The sinking itself went like this. The boat spent Sunday night tied up at a pier in Calabash, N.C., and left around 7 a.m. Monday for a two-hour tow to the reef. A contractor had installed plugs in the hull that were pulled once she was in position. Ropes guided her down, and scuba divers checked that she settled properly on the sandy bottom.
She has company down there. PA-02 already holds a tugboat, two Navy landing craft and several Army armored personnel carriers. It’s also one of the state’s oldest reef sites. SCDNR says its first structures went in during the 1970s to give fish habitat on an otherwise bare stretch of sea floor [SCDNR, 2017].
One detail in Monday’s coverage tells you a lot about how far this program can go: the hull is steel.
Spanik told WPDE that a durable steel ship is worth turning into a reef instead of sending it to a landfill [WPDE, 2026]. Chanaca was blunter. He said most of the abandoned boats the agency deals with are fiberglass, which he called toxic to the environment WMBF reported that many abandoned fiberglass boats get cut up and hauled to landfills because the material breaks down over time [WMBF, 2026].
That’s the catch. The reef program can only take a narrow slice of what’s sitting in our marshes: sturdy steel or concrete hulls that hold up for decades underwater. The typical derelict along the Intracoastal Waterway, a fiberglass cabin cruiser or a sailboat nobody wants, doesn’t qualify. So the Miss Sandra Gail is a good example of what’s possible, but she isn’t a blueprint for clearing the backlog. For most of these boats, the end is still a landfill, and someone still has to pay for that.
Our take: the reef program is a smart way to get value out of the best candidates. It isn’t a fix for the derelict boat problem as a whole. Readers should keep both of those in mind when officials point to this project.
The most important local angle may be this one. Reports say Horry County’s legislative delegation secured the money to prepare abandoned boats for the reef program. None of the coverage we reviewed said how much was spent, how much is left, or how many other boats are lined up.
Those are fair questions, because cleanup gets expensive fast. In 2025, a state official told Live 5 News that clearing the remaining abandoned boats from South Carolina’s coastal waters would cost about $5 million.
The state also has new legal tools. In May 2025, Gov. Henry McMaster signed S. 367, sponsored by Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston. The law gives SCDNR a clear process for giving notice on abandoned boats and removing them, and it raises penalties for people convicted [South Carolina Public Radio, 2025]. Abandoning a boat had already been a misdemeanor since 2008, but the SC Daily Gazette reported that the old law didn’t stop people from leaving boats in state waters [SC Daily Gazette, 2025]. The first arrest under the new law came in July 2025, over a 120-foot former Navy vessel left in Bohicket Creek. SCDNR later sank that same vessel as a reef, its 612th reef deployment [Seawaves, 2025].
None of the reports on the Miss Sandra Gail say whether the owners who abandoned her faced any charges. The family donated the boat, but the people who let it drift into the marsh haven’t been named publicly. Whether SCDNR plans to use the new law in Horry County cases is still an open question.
For the people who fish and dive the North Strand, the payoff could come quickly. SCDNR says sunken vessels can start drawing marine life within hours as barnacles and other organisms settle on them, though a reef can take three to five years to fully develop. Officials also told reporters the new structure should help spread out fishing and diving traffic and support local businesses that depend on the water.
The reasoning holds up. SCDNR has long said South Carolina’s sea floor has little natural hard bottom, which is why man-made structure matters so much for local fisheries [South Carolina Public Radio, 2022]. Adding structure at a reef that’s only 10 miles out puts better fishing within reach of smaller boats that can’t make the run to deep sites 30 miles offshore. It also gives charter captains and dive shops in Little River and North Myrtle Beach another spot to take customers.
The program has grown slowly but steadily. It started in 1973 and now keeps up about 48 to 49 offshore sites along the coast. WBTW reported 48 and WPDE reported 49 [WBTW/WSPA, 2026; WPDE, 2026]. Reef coordinates are free to download from SCDNR for anyone who wants to load them into a GPS [SCDNR, 2018].
The Miss Sandra Gail has a quiet future ahead of her: slowly turning into habitat for black sea bass, sheepshead and whatever else moves in. On land, the real story is just getting started. Here’s what we’ll be watching and asking about:
If you know of an abandoned boat in a Horry or Georgetown County creek, marsh or marina, send us the location. We’ll ask SCDNR about it. A family who loved the Miss Sandra Gail made sure her story ended well. Plenty of other boats out there don’t have anyone looking out for them.
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – Family member describes sinking of shrimp boat by SCDNR as ‘bittersweet’ (MyHorryNews, 2026)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – South Carolina DNR gives abandoned shrimp boat new life as artificial reef (WBTW via WSPA, 2026)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – SCDNR sinks abandoned shrimp boat in Little River (WPDE, 2026)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – SCDNR sinks boat along coast after nearly 3 years of planning (WMBF, 2026)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – SCDNR to sink abandoned shrimp boat as artificial reef off Little River (The Fishing Wire, 2026)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – Divers and fish to benefit from Little River reef addition (SCDNR, 2017)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – Tugboat added to Vermilion Reef off Georgetown (SCDNR, 2019)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – Artificial Reefs of South Carolina: site maps and coordinates (SCDNR)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – Owner of abandoned torpedo vessel charged under new SC boat law (South Carolina Public Radio, 2025)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – DNR makes first arrest under new SC abandoned boat law (SC Daily Gazette, 2025)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – SC lawmakers push new bill to address abandoned boats in waterways (Live 5 News, 2025)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – Old shrimp boat sunk to make new reef off S. Carolina coast (South Carolina Public Radio, 2022)
Abandoned Little River Shrimp Boat – S. 367 bill text and status (SC General Assembly)
