PANAMA CITY — “Blown Away,” a bane to wildlife authorities, hadn’t blown anywhere in at least three years.
Ever since they noticed the 27-foot 1986 Newport MKII sloop sunk in St. Andrew Bay in August 2011, several Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) officers sought the owner of the derelict sailboat. FWC committed more than 120 man-hours to speaking with relatives, employers and even former landlords in an investigation that included Bay and Okaloosa counties. Officers were met mostly with dead ends until the three-year case came to a close Thursday.
Christopher Gary Aceves, 50, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges Thursday for abandoning a vehicle, littering and culpable negligence, carrying a $350 fine and an order to remove the boat.
The boat, which has an inboard engine, had been run aground between Posten Bayou and Pretty Bayou. Aceves was mooring it at a local marina but, at some point, moved home to Laurel Hill and fell behind on payments. The marina was able to find Aceves and get him to move the boat. Over the following three years, however, FWC officers were not as lucky.
“The most recent endeavor involved contact with his brother,” FWC officer Drew Nelson wrote in an official reports. “He advised me he had not seen his brother in some time and no longer resided with him in Laurel Hill.”
Meanwhile, the sloop remained in the water. Marine growth attached to the hull, but other aspects of the boat began to succumb to the wind, weather, seas and sun. The interior was completely swamped and all hardware and equipment was a loss.
Attempts to contact Aceves were unsuccessful.
Other than being an eyesore to officials, the boat posed a health and safety concern.
“He did not illuminate or mark the boat so as to be visible to other waterborne traffic,” Nelson said.
Unsecured items on board also had littered the bay, but the boat was not an environmental hazard, FWC officers reported.
Officers basically waited for Aceves to come to them. He was arrested in Bay County in March on a charge of breaking into a car and then cited for abandoning Blown Away.
Aceves has been ordered to remove the boat and cover the cost of doing so. A timeline for the boat’s removal was unclear Thursday.