New ships sink today

[jet126]

Just not sure how I feel about this ...

Ships To Be Turned Into Fish Habitats Off Haulover - cbs4.com

Ships To Be Turned Into Fish Habitats Off Haulover

HAULOVER BEACH (CBS4) ―
Miami-Dade's expansive artificial reef program will get even larger Wednesday after a 'lady' and a 'shark' are sunk off Haulover Beach.
At noon, the M/V Shark and the Catharina are scheduled to be scuttled in 200 feet of water about two and half miles off the Haulover Inlet. Once on the bottom the ships will 'enhance the marine habitat' and provide additional 'fisheries resources', according to the Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM).

Built in Sweden in 1896, the 72-foot Catharina spent most of its life as a steam powered logging tug boat. It was later converted to a motored sailing vessel. An 82-foot tugboat, the M/V Shark was built in New Orleans in 1951. During most of its career it served on the Great Lakes. It was later converted to a cargo ship.

The Army Corps of Engineers obtained both boats, which had become derelict vessels, and donated them to Miami-Dades Artificial Reef Program.

Since the county's Artificial Reef Program was set up in 1981, DERM has supervised the sinking of almost fifty large vessels, two retired oil production platforms donated by Tenneco Oil Corporation, a U.S. Army tank and thousands of tons of cast concrete materials at 17 offshore sites and 11 inshore sites.

 

[Jupiter31]

Not sure I understand what you mean by "Just not sure how I feel about this ... "

If you are saying they are small, deep and of little attraction to recreational divers (sunk in 200') I agree with you 100% - if you don't agree with artificial reefs in general - and I've read a lot both pro and con - then I don't.

Which is it?

 

[jet126]

Not sure I understand what you mean by "Just not sure how I feel about this ... "

If you are saying they are small, deep and of little attraction to recreational divers (sunk in 200') I agree with you 100% - if you don't agree with artificial reefs in general - and I've read a lot both pro and con - then I don't.

Which is it?

Nothing against artificial reefs in general. Wrecks can make for a wonderful dive. I just found this particular sinking a little unsettling. To me it seems a good excuse for Miami-Dade to get rid of junk ...

At 200ft it is way over the recreational dive limit, and the overall sizes of the two ships make a very small target for an artificial reef. Sure fish will come live on them, but enough to be classified as a 'fisheries resource'?

There will be recruitment (i..e. movement of fish and growth of coral / other inverts) on to the artificial reef. But that could mean that there is movement of species away from the natural reef which can be detrimental to the health of the reef.

Hopefully they thought all this through beforehand and hopefully the ships will land where there is no habitat already available.

And I wish we (mankind) would stop using the ocean as our own personal garbage dump.

 

[Jupiter31]

Nothing against artificial reefs in general. Wrecks can make for a wonderful dive. I just found this particular sinking a little unsettling. To me it seems a good excuse for Miami-Dade to get rid of junk ... Maybe - but better sunk than rotting away somewhere. You could make that same arguement for many of the artifical reefs.

At 200ft it is way over the recreational dive limit, and the overall sizes of the two ships make a very small target for an artificial reef. Sure fish will come live on them, but enough to be classified as a 'fisheries resource'? Its a balancing act for sure - remember, another "constituency" that has to be satisfied are the fishermen, who love a wreck that is deper and not often dove (dived?)

There will be recruitment (i..e. movement of fish and growth of coral / other inverts) on to the artificial reef. But that could mean that there is movement of species away from the natural reef which can be detrimental to the health of the reef. I think the jury is still out on this - I've read pro and con - if there is a reef nearby (unlikely in this case) there is likely to be some movement - but I suspect they are not close to existing reefs and were sunk in sand.

Hopefully they thought all this through beforehand and hopefully the ships will land where there is no habitat already available. Knowing what i know about that general area, I would bet this is the case.

And I wish we (mankind) would stop using the ocean as our own personal garbage dump.

On this we agree - where we perhaps do not is I would not classify artifical reefs (in general, ships in particular) as garbage. I thought the sinking of the rolls royce off palm beach and the "Tiki bar" off Miami to name 2 as foolish; in retrospect so was the plane (727??) - you had to know they would end up as junk - and don't get me started on the tires sunk off Ft Lauderdale.....




Thanks for the reply and clairification

 

[aue-mike]

FWIW...

The 81.7-foot long tug SHARK was built in 1951 as the MESSENGER by Lester F. Alexander and Company at New Orleans.

The 70.7-foot long CATHARINA UHRWEDER (actual full name) was built in 1896 as the SANDSLÅN I by Hernösands Verkstad & Varfs AB, Härnösand, Sweden.

Also, sometimes small reefs are extremely robust, much moreso than larger ones....

Respectfully, it sounds like the earlier posters were more upset that the vessels were deployed in deeper water than they could dive, versus the old sink/source debate. These wrecks are still very diveable, and probably will be more interesting being in deeper water than if they were dropped shallow: they will retain their integrity more, fish will likely be more abundant and larger over time, and they will likely attract some deeper species as well.

Cheers,
Mike