Miss Sandra Gail Prepared for South Carolina’s Ron McManus Memorial Reef

A fishing vessel that spent more than two years abandoned and hard aground near the South Carolina–North Carolina border is being prepared for a second life offshore.

The 52-foot Miss Sandra Gail is slated for deployment at South Carolina’s Ron McManus Memorial Reef, also known as PA-04, approximately five nautical miles off Little River. Local reporting shows crews salvaging and cleaning the vessel, while state procurement documents call for removal, environmental preparation, towing and controlled sinking at a location and orientation specified by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

The work is more involved than simply towing an old boat offshore. The state solicitation requires fuel, oil and other potential pollutants to be removed, along with modifications needed for safe transport, required navigational clearance and predictable placement. Procurement documents describe the vessel as 52 feet long with a 17.5-foot beam and note that it floods with the tide while hard aground.

For divers, the project is significant because a vessel provides a large, recognizable structure that can become both fish habitat and a future wreck-diving objective. It may also create a new site for documenting early colonization through repeat photography and fish counts. Those possibilities remain prospective: the published local report does not confirm a completed sinking, a final deployment date, water depth, charted coordinates, upright orientation, mooring or public-access conditions.

The project has also been described as part of a renewed push to place vessels in South Carolina’s artificial-reef system. If deployment is completed as planned, the Miss Sandra Gail would expand an existing permitted reef rather than create an unregulated standalone wreck.

Divers should wait for SCDNR’s official post-deployment notice and updated reef data before planning a trip. Final clearance, orientation and seabed depth determine whether a wreck is suitable for recreational profiles, technical dives or only fishing and habitat monitoring.