Mattapoisett Marine Experts Uncover Ruins of Shipwrecked Ferry

The Roy boys have lived their whole lives on the ocean, so there's not much that they haven't seen before. That's why when they got a call looking for them to recover a fairly sizable ferry from the waters off of Providence, they accepted the challenge. The owner had contacted Tucker Roy Marine Towing and Salvage in Mattapoisett to take the trip out to Providence to remove it.

The 180-foot ferry had been in the water for a considerable time, about 10 years.

"Several other companies tried to get the decaying ferry out of the water, but they couldn't get it up," Conrad Roy said. Time has not been kind to the sunken ferry. It has considerably rusted and decayed over the years.

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When asked how deep the ferry was sitting in the water, Roy laughed and said, "deep enough." Roy said they needed six 10-inch pumps and four six-inch pumps to pump 23,000 gallons per minute.

"There were a lot of holes in this thing," Roy said..

Apparently, the ferry used to be in service out of Boston before being decommissioned. The owner bought the ferry and had it brought down to Providence with the intention of scrapping it for materials.

The ferry is now sitting up on the beach by Rhode Island Metals, where it will be hauled out of the water sometime this week.

The Roys were unsure of the age of the ferry.