“We’re not sure what happened, other than the rain and the water that came up. “The boat was tied up, and we’re not sure if that caused it to be dragged under,” Chief Dep. Brad York said. “We believe that there was a siege that caused the water level to rise rapidly. Plus, we have those dive doors, which the mechanic said were compromised.”
The boat was docked at Gem Beach Marina in Port Clinton.
The actual cause of the boat sinking is still being investigated.
“We have a couple theories,” York explained. “With the weather, we sent a guy to check on the boat, and he noticed that it was taking on water; we immediately had everyone scrambling, but by the time we could do anything, it was completely submerged.” They raised it by simply pumping it out. They simply put big pumps in there and pumped it out.”
The top of the cabin was never fully submerged.
At 7:04 a.m. on July 31, the boat began to take on water but had not yet submerged. By 7:45 a.m., the boat was sitting on the marina floor. Two hours later, the pumps restored its buoyancy.
“It was only submerged for about an hour. Our guys went down to pump it out. It popped right up. Right now, it is being dried. “The motors are fine,” York said. “There was some water in the starboard engine, but they dried it out. It’s doing okay. There is a lot of cosmetic (damage) inside the boat, and the electronics are most likely ruined. It must be completely dried out before we can determine what we can salvage.”
The boat cost $360,000 and was funded by the Department of Homeland Security. Its first trip on Lake Erie was on June 2, 2025.
Getting the boat ready to patrol Lake Erie again could be costly, but the repair costs have yet to be calculated. In addition to some marine electronics, the boat includes all of the electronics found in a standard patrol car, which costs around $30,000.
The futuristic-looking vessel is a 34-foot Novielli aluminum-hull boat.
Sheriff Stephen Levorchick expressed confidence that it would be operational and patrolling Lake Erie again soon.
A seiche, similar to tides, occurs when strong winds and rapid changes in atmospheric pressure push water from one end of a body of water to another. As recently as 2008, strong winds created waves 12-16 feet high in Lake Erie, causing flooding near Buffalo, New York, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
