Squad calls rescue vehicle total loss
By: Sue Kramer
LAMBERTVILLE – The Lambertville-New Hope Ambulance and Rescue Squad’s airboat is back on dry land after a five-hour salvage mission on the Delaware River Saturday.
But with damages that have rendered it a total loss, squad members announced Sunday they are turning to the public for donations to help replace the vital piece of rescue equipment.
The decision to replace the airboat was a sad aftermath to the recovery efforts of the day before. Around 50 volunteers, some coming from as far as Warminster and Upper Black Eddy, Pa., showed up at 8 a.m. at Fireman’s Island, which was closed to the public during the operation, to help the squad with the recovery of the boat, which had been underwater since June 14 when it capsized and sank during a training drill.
By Saturday, the level of the river had dropped about 4 feet from the time the airboat was located June 20. Two feet of the boat’s stern was sticking out of the water and clearly visible as the recovery began. Although the low water level was necessary to the recovery efforts, the still-swift current and numerous rocks submerged just below the surface hampered the volunteers as they maneuvered in the area.
Logistically, the recovery seemed simple enough. With the airboat laying on its right side, it had to be flipped right side up, raised to the surface and towed to shore. Shortly before 10 a.m., with the necessary equipment – flotation barrels, cinder blocks, strapping and inflatable slings – loaded on board, eight boats and 25 people, including a dozen divers, headed a half-mile upriver from the Fireman’s Island boat launch.
What they soon found out was the motor of the airboat was firmly wedged between two rocks on the bottom of the river. The numerous underwater rocks south of the boat made it impossible to pull the boat out in that direction so attempts were made to dislodge the boat by pulling it upriver, using jet powered boats that were more suited to the rocky water.
Lambertville resident, Eugene Lelie, who said the area was too rocky for the prop boats to drop their props, made several unsuccessful attempts at dislodging the airboat. His jet-powered boat, which has an 8-inch thick hull and sits only 4 inches below the surface, was crafted for white-water maneuvering.
"It’s bottom up, its stern is upriver, and its motor is wedged in a rock," Mr. Lelie said after trying to dislodge the airboat for more than an hour.
His boat was slightly damaged in the attempts.
"(Peter) Woolsey, he’s got his jet up there, which has got twice the horsepower of mine, but it’s fiberglass," Mr. Lelie said. "He hits one of those rocks, and he’ll go down like a stone," referring to the problems the boaters faced in the shallow water.
Those on shore were as frustrated as those on the river. Some of the ideas they discussed were using a helicopter to pull the boat straight up and airlifting it to shore, driving a heavy-duty wrecker through the shallow water at the edge of the river and winching it out and the humorous – simply leaving it there to be used as a fishing reef.
By 12:30, the boat had been raised a little, but still not enough to flip it upright. Half an hour later, the volunteers finally succeeded in bringing the boat to the surface, but then, it was floating upside down in 4 feet of water, and the current was too swift for the divers to maneuver the flotation barrels to flip the airboat over.
"We had a problem because of the connection of the boat, because of the angle of the boat and the contour of the boat," squad spokesperson Ed Skillman said Saturday afternoon. "Obviously, he ran into more trouble than he anticipated, but, we thought it was going to be a difficult job getting it out," referring to Bob Torok of BRS Scuba, who directed the recovery efforts. "In the area where the boat was, there was still some excessive current. The water had gone down, but there was a lot of current. What happened was, we weren’t able to get the barrels maintained underneath the boat."
Ideally, Mr. Skillman said, the barrels would be "put under the boat."
He explained "they’re strapped in, they’re filled with air, and then we also utilized airbags" to raise the boat.
"Basically, we just hooked lift bags to it and inflated it and floated it up," Mr. Torok said later that afternoon, making the recovery sound easy. "Once we got it in a little bit shallower water, we flipped it over, and we got it pumped out."
Mr. Woolsey, a Solebury resident, was able to flip the airboat upright about 1:30, using his powerful boat, a Yamaha with twin 270 hp inboard jet-drive motors. By 2, the airboat was being pumped out and towed to shore, and in places where the river was only knee-deep, the divers actually walked the boat downriver.
But the airboat quickly got hung up on a sandbar just a short distance from where it had been raised. After many attempts to again dislodge the airboat, the Columbia Fire Company’s portable pump was taken out to the airboat. The airboat finally popped to the surface and floated downriver in the current with the divers holding onto the sides.
"We pumped the water out of the boat, and then manually, they did it by hand until they got out here, and then the current started taking them," Mr. Skillman said.
The airboat floated nearly three-quarters of a mile before the boaters and divers were able to curtail its movement, turn it around and, with a boat on either side to stabilize its movement, pull it back upriver to shore.
"The problem we had out there now," Mr. Skillman said, "was they’re jet-driven boats. They lose about 25 percent of their power. Any time you weight down their rear end, they give you problems steering and trying to pull. What we finally ended up having to do was jockey two boats back and forth to bring it in."
At 3 p.m., the airboat touched shore amid the cheers of the volunteers.
On the surface, the boat’s hull appeared to be in surprisingly good shape, considering the length of time it had been underwater and battered by the river. There were some obvious dents in the hull, and a leak in the seam in the center back of the boat, but the motor and driver’s seat were still attached, albeit crookedly. The cage and prop were smashed with one section of the cage being brought in separately.
"We’ll have to sit down and evaluate," Mr. Skillman said at the time. "We’re going to pressure-wash it. There’s a lot of damage so after we pressure-wash it, we’ll see what our next move’s going to be."
The airboat was loaded on its trailer and taken to the squad building on Alexander Avenue. Sunday, Mr. Skillman said a detailed inspection of the airboat showed major damage.
While squad members will be meeting with the boat’s manufacturer this week to discuss the accident and a future course of action, Mr. Skillman said the boat is considered a total loss. The squad wants to replace the airboat with one that is similar in design.
The airboat was valued at $30,000 and was not insured. Anyone wishing to contribute can send a donation to the squad at PO Box 237, Lambertville, 08530.