Sunken, stubborn Lady Grace remains in the Hoquiam River

By Dan Hammock • March 3, 2020 5:00 pm
DAN HAMMOCK | GRAYS HARBOR NEWS GROUP Contractors from Associated Underwater Services attempted to raise the Lady Grace from the Hoquiam River Friday. Several complicating factors were discovered and now it will be several weeks before the vessel will be removed from the river.
DAN HAMMOCK | GRAYS HARBOR NEWS GROUP Contractors from Associated Underwater Services attempted to raise the Lady Grace from the Hoquiam River Friday. Several complicating factors were discovered and now it will be several weeks before the vessel will be removed from the river.

The Lady Grace, the 80-foot fishing vessel that sank in the Hoquiam River nearly two years ago, remains stubbornly stuck to the bottom.

Last week, contractors from Associated Underwater Services began the process of removal, repairing holes in the wooden hull and attaching air bags to the vessel. Friday, the bags were inflated. The Grace didn’t budge.

Contractors that day said they had intended to bring a crane in Monday. The mast of the Grace was too heavy and the crane would help right her once afloat. The plan was to tow the vessel to the Quigg Bros. yard on the Chehalis River in Aberdeen for recycling.

Monday morning, the City of Hoquiam got an email from the contractor saying that “salvage operations have come to a halt due to several conditions.”

According to the email, the wooden hull was too damaged and fragile to attach flotation bags. “The bags will only cause more damage than good,” read the email.

To further complicate things, the email stated a second vessel was attached to the Lady Grace, something the contractor was previously unaware of. “When we lift one vessel, the second comes up with it,” read the email.

The Lady Grace is also “lying amongst and pinched inside a bunch of timber piles,” read the email. The piles make the vessel difficult to right, and also prohibit the placement of the flotation bags that would be used to bring her to the surface.

The contractor said its crews will return with a crane barge “in about three weeks to lift the Lady Grace from the piles.”

The city has worked with the Department of Natural Resources’ Derelict Vessel Removal Program for more than a year to haul the Lady Grace out of the river, where she sank near the end of Karr Avenue. An influx of money from the Legislature last year specifically for larger vessels made it possible, paid 100% by the program.