A taste of freedom from a long stay at a wet slip at Homeport Marina was a short one for a sailboat now languishing on the north bank of the Intracoastal Waterway between the State Route 59 bridge and Saunders Yachtworks. Its fate is still in a state of flux.

Once there, it briefly fell to the city to hunt for a solution, but now Gulf Shores spokesman Grant Brown, director of recreation and cultural affairs, says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be looking for a contractor to eventually have it moved.

“We have been in contact with them, and they are taking the lead,” Brown said.

But Corps spokesman and Chief of Public Affairs for the Mobile District Dustin Gautney said he was unaware of the abandoned sailboat in a phone call with Gulf Coast Media on Aug. 14.

“I appreciate the heads up,” Gautney said. “Basically, this ended up falling into the Coast Guard. I'll go ahead and forward it to the Coast Guard and see what I can do to try to help clear that out.”

Gautney said the responsibility is a little muddy with both the Corps and the Coast Guard having an interest in the workings of the Intracoastal Waterway.

“It's basically a cross-collaboration between us and the Coast Guard because basically they can police the actual area and stuff like that, but we are the ones that maintain it,” Gautney said. “Thank you for letting us know. We'll push that out forward.”

After languishing somewhat at Homeport Marina in need of repairs, the boat was at least upright and not grounded during a long stay there.

“The boat was at LuLu’s for years without an operable engine,” Gulf Shores Public Works Director Noel Hand said. “It became under new ownership, then towed out of the marina.”

This maiden voyage by the new owner didn’t last very long as trouble with another boat complicated the mission to a repair shop.

“Unfortunately, the tow boat broke down, so they anchored and tied off the boat to shore,” Hand said. “Low tide came and heeled the boat over and it took on water. It now rests on the ground.”

The city’s Marine Unit has been communicating with the owner for several weeks, Hand said, and ultimately the owner will have to step up.

“We have been working with them to get it removed, and it is slower than we would like for sure,” Hand said.

At one point, David and Stuart Walter of Walter Marine, its home just east of the sailboat on the waterway in between the former toll bridge and the new state bridge, was contracted through the city to remove the vessel.

The father-son team were eating lunch on Aug. 13 when David Stuart received a text message asking why the boat was still there.

“We got canceled,” he said Stuart told him. “I don't know anybody at the Corps. If you find out, let me know. I'd still like the job, but I don't know who to talk to.”

Walter Stuart said in most cases of removing abandoned vessels, it is usually destroyed in the removal process to keep them from sinking and because the rotting wood and fiberglass aren’t salvageable. But Alabama law doesn’t require them to be destroyed.

If it’s seaworthy, a government can retrieve it and sell it at auction, or it can be donated it to a “qualified organization” or a government entity.

For now, it languishes a stone’s throw from the new pedestrian bridge the city is building over the Intracoastal Waterway at East Second Street.