A rotted boat stranded on a metropolitan Adelaide beach for weeks could be destined for the dump after it sank in shallow waters just two days after being pulled back to sea.
The boat was beached at North Haven Beach in mid-July after bad weather and a comedy of errors led it to drift to shore.
Excavator Bill Haros towed the yacht, which he dubbed the SS Minnow after the charter boat in 1960s TV show Gilligan's Island, from the sand to shallow water on Wednesday.
Pocked with holes and wood rot, the dilapidated yacht has since sunk just metres offshore where it was anchored.
"Looks like I'm going back to pick it up soon," Mr Haros said.
Comedy of errors
The saga began when the boat reportedly hit bad weather and needed repairs at Port Adelaide, but a dingy tethered to it for towing came loose and disappeared.
The yacht was instead towed to nearby North Haven Beach and anchored, but its own moorings came loose and it drifted to shore where it became beached in the sand.
Despite repeated efforts by its owners and volunteers to dig a channel and coax the yacht into the waves with the tide, the stubborn vessel would not budge for weeks.
Earlier this week, the City of Port Adelaide and Enfield asked Mr Haros, who helps manage sand and dunes along the shore, to pull it back into the sea with his excavator.
At the time he told the ABC he was expecting it to sink, such was the poor state of the yacht.
"It's all wood rot and waves are just going straight over the top into the holes," he said.
"I think I'll be back there tomorrow. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I can see the writing on the wall."
The yacht did not prove him wrong, but it did last an extra 24 hours before it sank.
A community effort
Mayor Claire Boan said it had been a community effort to give the boat another chance.
"It really came together to do a good thing on that one, but unfortunately the boat needed a few more repairs than the owner anticipated."
She said the owner did manage to attach another dingy to the yacht and tried to tow it to a Port River slip for repairs.
"But I think it was collecting a lot of water, so it was probably too heavy to pull with the boat he had."
Mr Haros said he was expecting now to pull the boat back from the sea with a "mechanical claw", at which point it would probably be "smashed up and put in the tipper".
"I know we should have done that the other day, but you have to give them a go," he said.
Ms Boan said the council was still working through the legalities of the recovery.
