Abandoned 50-Foot Shrimp Boat Mysteriously Washes Up On Florida Beach

Local officials were briefly mystified when a 50-foot shrimp boat washed up on a Florida beach over the weekend without a single person on board.

The Flagler Beach Fire Department said crews were dispatched to Beverly Beach, a few miles north of Flagler Beach, shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday after the shrimp boat “Miss Montie” ran aground. Crews arrived and attempted to make vocal contact with the crew, and when there was no response, a search revealed there was no one on board.

The fire department said the U.S. Coast Guard was contacted, and they confirmed the crew was accounted for.

Coast Guard Marine Science Technician Brandan Blackwell, who responded to the scene, told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that the crew was removed from the vessel by the Coast Guard before Sunday.

“We are just making sure that everything looks like its buttoned up, the vessel is still upright, its not capsizing or anything,” Blackwell told the outlet. “Its a steel hull, so it shouldnt fall apart overnight or anything crazy like that.”

Miss Montie’s captain, Corey Thomas, told the outlet that the boat lost power on Friday night. When he realized the boat’s spare anchor would not hold it, he contacted the Coast Guard, thinking they would be able to tow the boat.

“The [Coast Guard] told me they couldnt tow me. And I couldnt understand why they couldnt tow me. They told me it was too dangerous,” Thomas said. Instead, the Coast Guard removed the crew and brought them to shore.

Thomas then found another boat willing to tow Miss Montie, but she had drifted several miles in just a matter of hours, and the waves were too high to tow the boat safely. Instead, Thomas tried to use the second anchor to keep the boat in place, but it eventually drifted to shore. Thomas later told Fox News he had hired a larger shrimp boat to tow it off the beach.