In this image provided by Aaron Pike Rugh, the retired sardine carrier Jacob Pike, which sank last winter off Harpswell, Maine, is seen after a salvage company raised the vessel in this photo taken, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in waters off South Portland, Maine. – An 83-foot motor boat that was one of the first refrigerated sardine carriers during the heyday of Maine’s sardine industry is going to be scrapped after a recovery operation to retrieve the sunken vessel.
Launched in 1949, the Jacob Pike is a wooden vessel with a motor, along with a type of refrigeration system that allowed the vessel to accept tons of herring from fishing vessels before being offloaded at canneries. He said he hoped that the Coast Guard would hand the vessel over to the nonprofit without being saddled with costs associated with environmental remediation. Since that's not possible, he's modifying his goal of saving the entire vessel intact. Instead, he hopes to save documentation and enough components to be able to reconstruct the vessel.