Dredge work at Santa Cruz Harbor

Storms over the past week are continuing to take a toll on the Central Coast, including part of the Santa Cruz Harbor. Half a dozen boats were relocated after a low king tide exposed large mounds of sediment. The Santa Cruz Harbor Port District – hard at work Thursday afternoon performing routine dredging. Though the work is necessary, it wasn’t enough to keep boats from being stuck in the mud. Boats at Dock J had it the worst, some with their keels buried under the water. That type of damage isn’t cheap to fix. Homer Lighthall Jr. is a contractor at the Santa Cruz Harbor Boatyard. He says the potential cost of that damage can be more than boat owners might imagine. “If it’s keel hull joint [damage] it can be pretty expensive because it’s deep into the structure of the boat” said Lighthall. “It can be 20 to 30,000 dollars to repair and it’s not a fun thing to do either.” Lighthall says only a few boats at the harbor get used every month. Because of that, many boat owners don’t discover damage until much later. Jerry Bennett says he doesn’t fall under that category, he and his partner check their boat two to three days. He’s also no stranger to King Tides like the one that affected boats close to him. “A king low tide we check first because the outdrive will take 4 feet of water or quite close to it” Bennett said. “So we check with a pole to make sure we can get otherwise you’re just churning up mud.” The Port Authority continues to perform its routine maintenance and work to provide for the boat owners like Jerry at the harbor. “Our mission here is to provide water for vessels to move around and be stored in and when they can’t move then we have some serious work to do” said Port Director Lisa Ekers.