Joe's Tug
Shrimp Boat · United States · Lost 1989 · The Florida Keys
A stripped shrimp boat scuttled as an artificial reef off Stock Island, popularly but incorrectly remembered as a tugboat lost to pirates.
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The Vessel and Her Loss
Joe's Tug is, despite its name, a 75-foot steel-hulled shrimp trawler that first sank at the pier in Stock Island's Safe Harbor in 1986. It was refloated, stripped of its engine and propellers, reinforced with steel bracing, and deliberately sunk as an artificial reef in January 1989 southeast of Key West. Local lore about pirates commandeering the boat during a botched delivery to Miami is not established fact, but the vessel's identity as a decommissioned shrimper prepared for reefing is documented by area dive operators and wreck references. Hurricanes Georges and Irene later broke the hull into two sections.
Vessel
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- Steel
- 75 ft
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- Diesel, single screw (engine removed prior to sinking)
- Not established
Loss
- January 21, 1989
- Intentional sinking
- About seven miles southeast of Key West, six miles south of Stock Island
- Atlantic Ocean
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- No casualties are recorded; the vessel had been decommissioned and prepared for reefing before its final placement.
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- 60-65
- Upright but broken into two sections roughly 30 feet apart after Hurricanes Georges (1998) and later storms; reinforced hull has kept it stable
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Position
- 24.46° N 81.74° W
- Reported, unconfirmed
- Stock Island, Florida
Coordinates of 24°27.850'N 81°44.270'W are widely reported by dive operators and wreck-diving references but are not drawn from an authoritative government survey.
Evidence
Overall confidence: Partially documented (55/100)
The vessel's original name, builder, and the popular "pirate getaway" origin story are not established in the sources reviewed; only her post-1986 history as a decommissioned shrimp boat prepared for reefing is documented.
Vessel type, reefing history, hurricane damage.
Sinking date, dimensions, reinforcement details, coordinates.
