Posted on July 31, 2017
By Lee Hinnant, stateportpilot.com
Less than two weeks into the job, the Merritt has pulled out of a dredging operation designed to clear the badly shoaled Lockwood Folly Inlet.
The Merritt is a side-cast dredge that tosses dredged sediments to the side. A spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday the vessel had returned to the maintenance yard at the State Port in Wilmington because she developed a hole in her hull.
The inlet is less than three feet deep in places at low tide and is so clogged with sand that the U.S. Coast Guard has removed the navigational buoys, meaning boaters attempting to transit Lockwood Folly Inlet do so at their own peril.
The Merritt began work July 17 and was able to remove some of the most-shoaled portions of the channel. The corps hopes to send the special-purpose dredge Currituck in to finish the job in about two weeks. Originally, the work was slated to take no more than 21 days.
Source: stateportpilot.com
