10/14/2026
A Tartan 27 sailboat went hard aground yesterday evening on Townes Reef in the high wind. Big waves pushed it up onto one the shallowest parts of the reef. The Tartan has a swing keel with a shallow draft, which unfortunately is the wrong keel type to help keep the hull off the rocks. It ended up in less than a foot of water.
North Hero Volunteer Fire Dept. picked up the owner as he abandoned ship & waded out to the rescue boat, & the sailboat was left aground for the night.
With the boat most likely already totaled, the owner opted to have it dragged off the rocks rather than a more complicated salvage with lift bags. As it turned out, there wasn't enough depth to rig lift bags anyway.
Working with Burlington Harbor Launch and Tow, we pumped out the flooded cabin & evaluated the flow rate pouring back in through the damaged hull. I use a gas-powered salvage pump that does 260 gallons per minute, but the danger with boats this high aground is they take on water much faster as soon as they're back in deep water. Do it wrong & the boat you just towed off sinks.
Anywhere near the sailboat was too shallow for my workboat. We rigged 500' of tow lines & hauled the sailboat off the reef using a combination of a halyard tow and also a 2nd tow line to the bow. It's not my favorite salvage method, but it works.
North Hero Marina was ready with their travellift. With the salvage pump running, we made the short tow over to the marina & into the slings.
Sadly that's probably the last voyage on the lake for this boat 😕 The keel & hull damage was pretty severe, although I expected worse.. it's a tough older boat.
Good work to the fire depts that helped get the owner to safety in big waves & wind gusting to 40 mph.
NOTE: The dramatic photos from when the vessel first went aground were taken by others. I wasn't involved until today.
