{"id":301155,"date":"2026-05-20T10:14:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T10:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/301155\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:14:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T10:14:29","slug":"a-texas-beach-now-has-an-unexpected-attraction-a-stranded-shrimp-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/301155\/","title":{"rendered":"A Texas beach now has an unexpected attraction: A stranded shrimp boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

For days, people along the\u00a0Bolivar Peninsula<\/a> have been keeping watch over a stranded shrimp boat slowly being swallowed by the Texas coast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What started Friday morning as a trawler stuck on a sandbar near Crystal Beach<\/a> has turned into a growing spectacle on the beach<\/a>, with residents gathering to take photos, post updates online and speculate about whether the boat can be saved.<\/p>\n

The boat, called The Buccaneer, now sits fully washed up on the sand after surf and tides pushed it farther ashore over the weekend.<\/p>\n

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“It’s just the confluence of circumstances,” owner Shane Rilat<\/a>\u00a0told Chron. “It’s out of my hands. It’s out of my control. I’m trying to do everything the right way, and nature is working against me.”<\/p>\n

Rilat, a Texas City<\/a> shrimper and fisherman, said the vessel represents years of investment and is part of his family’s future.<\/p>\n

“That boat was basically my life savings investment,” he said. “I was buying my parents out of the business so that they could retire, so I have a promissory note for my parents’ business that I have to pay.”<\/p>\n

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\"Surf<\/p>\n

Surf and tides pushed the stranded shrimp boat farther onto the beach over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mark C. Morgan<\/p>\n

The grounding occurred early Friday, on the final day of shrimping season within\u00a0the three-mile limit, according to Rilat.<\/p>\n

“My captain calls me and says, ‘Hey, we’re having problems. I got too close to the beach. We have the net in the wheel, and we’re hitting the bottom. I can’t turn,”\u00a0Rilat said.<\/p>\n

The captain told him the boat had already crossed the outer sandbar when they realized they were in trouble. The crew radioed for help and contacted the Coast Guard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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“He said the Coast Guard<\/a> asked if anybody was in immediate danger, if they were taking on water, if they’d spilled anything,” Rilat said. “He said no to all of them, and they told him, ‘Well, you’re not in duress.'”<\/p>\n

According to the U.S. Coast Guard<\/a>, the incident remains under investigation.<\/p>\n

“There are plans to remove it,” Coast Guard<\/a> spokesperson Luke Baker said\u00a0in a statement. “Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Texas City is actively planning salvage operations to get it off the beach.”<\/p>\n

Baker added officials are “working as quick as we can to get the boat unstranded safely.”<\/p>\n

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Salvage operation could cost more than the boat<\/p>\n

Attempts to free the vessel on Friday were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

“We tried,” Rilat said. “We took other shrimp boats out there. I took my other boat out there and hooked up to it and tried to pull it. We had some equipment issues. We had to go get another rope. The tide and the weather got us.”<\/p>\n

“We broke the ropes and had to regroup,” he added. “We lost out due to time and tides.”<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

The shrimp boat The Buccaneer sit stranded on Crystal Beach after washing ashore on the Bolivar Peninsula.<\/p>\n

Mark C. Morgan<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0Rilat said, recovering the boat will likely require major equipment and could end up costing more than the vessel itself.<\/p>\n

“We’re gonna have to put water jets, we’re gonna have to dig,” he added. “We need a marine excavator, just short of a dredge.”<\/p>\n

Still, he said, there is at least one silver lining.<\/p>\n

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“The keel being stuck on the beach is actually good because it’s not sitting on the sandbar rocking up and down in the waves beating the boat to death,” he said. “My boat’s beached\u2014it’s kind of like dry dock, but it’s on dry land.”<\/p>\n

Community rallies around stranded crew<\/p>\n

Photos and videos of the stranded trawler have spread rapidly across social media, drawing crowds to Crystal Beach<\/a>. Images shared online showed seaweed and debris pushed high onto the shore around the vessel after high tide.<\/p>\n

Mark\u00a0C. Morgan, a resident who has been documenting the scene on Facebook, said the boat has become a rallying point for the community.<\/p>\n

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“Everyone in the community has tried to rally together to help them and bring them food,” Morgan said. “I mean, there are some jokes, but that’s kind of expected when you see a big old shrimp boat on the beach.”<\/p>\n

\"Seaweed<\/p>\n

Seaweed and debris surround the stranded shrimp boat after high tide along Crystal Beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Casey Lee Reid<\/p>\n

Rilat said he is working on setting up a GoFundMe account<\/a>, but wants to make sure people avoid scams.<\/p>\n

“I can’t just accept free help,” he added. “If anybody has equipment or stuff like that, they can reach out.”<\/p>\n

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He said locals can contact him through Lee’s Bait and Tackle on the Texas City Dike,<\/a> where many people already know him.<\/p>\n

What caused the boat to get stranded?<\/p>\n

When asked about speculation surrounding the grounding,\u00a0Rilat said the captain was awake and operating the boat when it became stranded.<\/p>\n

“He said as the sun was coming up, he was squinting his eyes and didn’t realize he went from 18 feet to 12 feet,” Rilat said. “He tried to turn the boat, and it wouldn’t turn because they had the net in the wheel.”<\/p>\n

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The crew had been working overnight during the final day of shrimping season<\/a> inside the three-mile limit.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The stranded shrimp boat drew attention from residents and visitors along the Bolivar Peninsula.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Casey Lee Reid<\/p>\n

“He was trying to see if there was one last drag before the season closes,” Rilat said. “They got the net in the wheel and wound up on the beach.”<\/p>\n

Law enforcement later helped secure the area around the boat.<\/p>\n

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Rilat, who previously worked as an Army medic and nurse before returning to\u00a0shrimping, said life on the water is still where he wants to be despite the setback.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes it’s very dangerous, and sometimes it might cost you your life savings, but I love it,” he said. “I wouldn’t be doing anything else.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For days, people along the\u00a0Bolivar Peninsula have been keeping watch over a stranded shrimp boat slowly being swallowed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2084,1836,2299,1704,85744,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-301155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chrongulf","tag-chronnews","tag-chronscience","tag-chronstaff","tag-chrontexas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}