[bitsamonkey]

I just posted this on Florida Sportsman:
Here's a quick update as I'm still extremely busy with pickling/salvaging the motor:
Went out on Monday with all of the equipment (truck inner tubes, hookah, tools, tons of rope and a huge 3" gas powered pump) and could not locate the boat! Found some more of our stuff at the original spot including a spear gun so my buddy shot a big hog and a red grouper and gathered up 4 lobster plus one that was still in a catch bag that went down with the boat. After doing a grid and concentric circles around the spot out to 1/2 a mile we knew we wouldn't spot it from the boat and headed in. Called an old friend and got a ride on an ultralight the next morning and spotted the boat immediately! Marked the spot, and off we went again. The boat had moved 1/2, mile while shorts, t-shirts and a bunch of stuff stayed right where it sunk. We started tying off the inner tubes, fitted a valve over the fuel tank vent, blocked off the fill with a rubber membrane, cut the fuel line to the engine and shoved inner tubes into any available pie holes. Another inner tube went around the lower unit. Gas tank must have been pretty close to having tons of leaks, because after getting some air in it the pressure blew out a bunch of little pinhole leaks along the top. The inner tubes got her up pretty quickly, but with seas and the LOW transom we could not imagine how we'd get the transom out of the water enough to start pumping her out. We decide to try the tow method as we had enough flotation to keep her upright. Made a bridle, hooked up about 60' of line and off we went. The boat actually came up really fast, but just wouldn't clear out. My buddy on the Seacraft pulled both bilge plugs to try to get the water out of there but no go. We pulled her all the way into the bay that way @ about 7 - 8 knots and managing until we got her to the lee side of Monument and beached her. Now we were able to get the transom up and used the gas pump to get all of the water out. I rigged a fresh battery to the bilge pumps and got them working, but they were barely keeping up with water coming in! Turns out the hull has two long holes on either chine where it ground against the bottom, and that's why the water wouldn't clear out. We stuffed a bunch of shop towels in the cracks, pumped her dry and towed her to a waiting trailer with both bilge pumps going. We made it! What a week. I spent the first 4 days after the sinking putting my other boat back together to do the salvage. Well, we lost one boat, got most of it back and got the other one back on the water. Lot's of work and some stress but it can be done.
I will be posting pictures of the mission on the classic seacraft forum, those guys were very helpful and positive.