Part of the anguish has been the wait.

With the historic 1926 fishing vessel Kodiak below the surface in the Crescent City, Calif., boat harbor, owner Mike Garfield has been waiting for nearly a month to see if the project he spent the past 12 years of his life on could be refloated and salvaged.

The Kodiak sank in the tsunami generated by the 9.0 earthquake in Japan March 11. Garfield said he put in 15,000 hours and spent more than $100,000 restoring the 68-foot vessel that fished in Alaska for more than 35 years.

The story passed down with the vessel is that it rescued people stranded on an island in Alaska in the aftermath of the great earthquake and tsunami of 1964 .

A crane and barge, supplied by the U.S. Coast Guard, arrived at Crescent City March 24. Garfield was initially told his boat would be among the first to be lifted, but pilings had to be removed to get the barge into position. It turns out the Kodiak was one of the last sunken vessels to come out of the water.

The wait was further prolonged when mechanical problems kept the crane from pulling the boat Monday. Those were repaired and the Kodiak was scheduled to be lifted Tuesday.

Garfield said several friends were at the dock with him as the process to raise the boat was under way.

He received encouragement from others as well.

 

 

“You better believe it, the whole county was there,” Garfield said, “even people that don’t like me too much and thought I was crazy (for working on the Kodiak).”