Record number of derelict boats pulled from Florida Keys — even yellow submarine
Hundreds of derelict vessels, from small boats, large commercial fishing trawlers and even a yellow submarine, were removed from Florida Keys waters in 2025, according to Monroe County officials.
Derelict vessels pose both environmental and navigational hazards. The reasons why they end up littering the shoreline, flats and mangroves vary — from hurricanes to people abandoning them due to the high cost of upkeep.
The removal effort was a part of a joint $300-million partnership between the county, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Marine Sanctuary, said county spokeswoman Kristen Livengood.
Between August 2024 and the end of the year, contracted crews removed 237 vessels throughout the island chain, the county said Wednesday.
“FWC officers searched the water from one end of the Keys to the other, while our removal contractors worked nonstop over the past year,” Monroe County Marine Resources Senior Administrator Brittany Burtner said in a statement. “At one point, through collaboration, 44 boats were removed in under five weeks. It made a huge difference for the safety of other boaters and the environment.”
READ MORE: Monroe County removes massive derelict submarine from Florida Keys waters
Most of the vessels removed — 116 — were in the Lower Keys down to Key West, Livengood said. Some of the major projects were in Boca Chica Basin, Man of War Harbor and Seaplane Basin.
Crews also removed 74 boats in the Upper Keys and 46 vessels from the Middle Keys city of Marathon, Livengood said.
Some of the most notable projects were the removal of a 96-foot yellow submarine in Boot Key in Marathon, a 66-foot shrimp boat in Upper Matecumbe Key, a 65-foot cabin cruiser in Sisters Creek, also in Marathon, and a 53-foot boat grounded within Bahia Honda State Park, just south of the Seven Mile Bridge in the Lower Keys, according to the county.
Livengood said the county has secured more funding to remove the remaining boats in the archipelago.
No Beatles link
The big yellow submarine has no connection to The Beatles’ 1966 hit, “Yellow Submarine.” It was brought to the Keys in the late 1990s by an engineer who hoped to make it seaworthy and take it to Honduras to operate tours.
That never happened, according to Monroe County court documents.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers arrested the sub’s owner, 72-year-old Duane Shelton, on a misdemeanor count of abandoning a derelict vessel, to which he pleaded no contest in November 2023. He was sentenced to one-year probation.
The Associated Press reported Shelton bought the hull of the sub from a Chicago scrapyard in 1997 for $10,000, and was refurbishing the vessel in the mangroves of Boot Key, an uninhabited wooded island off Marathon.
He eventually abandoned the project.
In its Oct. 11, 2023, arrest report, the FWC stated that the submarine was mostly dismantled when officers found it, and it had “no means of propulsion or steerage and its hull integrity is compromised.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2026 at 11:15 AM with the headline "Record number of derelict boats pulled from Florida Keys — even yellow submarine."
