There is now another broken-down vessel in need of rescue along Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan shoreline.
On April 28, Jerry Guyer, the owner of Silo Marina, once again attempted to salvage Deep Thought, a Chris-Craft Roamer, from its resting spot deep in the sand between McKinley Marina and Bradford Beach. In the process, a pontoon boat he and his salvage crew were using was washed up on the shoreline during evening storms, Guyer said.
Guyer said it was bad enough that the storm pushed the pontoon up on the sand, where it is now resting between Deep Thought and the rocks, but one of the aluminum floaters has completely broke off, too, and is floating farther down the beach.
“We are dealing with Mother Nature,” Guyer told the Journal Sentinel on April 30. “That is always an unknown.”
Guyer said the mounting pressure, public interest and publicity documenting his efforts to salvage the boat, which has been stranded since Oct. 13 when its owners from Mississippi ran out of gas and headed back home, “doesn’t really bother me too much.”
The pressure for him to get Deep Though removed amped up April 23. That’s when Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson held a press conference, Guyer at his side, to announce an anonymous donor had come forward to pay for a portion of the cost to salvage the boat.
At the time, Guyer had estimated he’d spent $20,000 on the effort. Now, he has the cost of a destroyed pontoon boat to add to the cost.
Jerry Guyer and Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson discuss plans to remove the abandoned boat Deep Thought on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
It should be the responsibility of the boat owners to pay for its removal. But Sherry and Richard Wells have avoided phone calls and are no longer communicating with Guyer. In early April, Milwaukee County finally admitted the boat was lodged on its property. But no one from the county is stepping up with any solutions, other than to say county taxpayers will not foot the bill for the boat’s removal.
“It is the nature of the unknown,” Guyer said of any salvage effort. “This thing has taken on a life of its own.”
Jessica Van Egeren is a reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She can be reached at jvanegeren@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pontoon boat joins Deep Thought on the shoreline of Lake Michigan