Seeker, the wooden scow hand-built on Martha’s Vineyard over more than a decade by owner Ted Box and hundreds of volunteers, sank in Lake Tashmoo earlier this month and remains mostly submerged.

“It’s still floating, but the water is up to the deck line,” said Tisbury harbormaster Gary Kovack, who spotted the vessel awash at its deep-water mooring the morning after heavy rain hit the Vineyard on Dec. 11. The timing couldn’t have been worse for the still-unfinished Seeker, whose bilge pumps were out of order, Mr. Box told the Gazette this week.

“It’s always a one-two punch, and the one was that the bilge pumps were clogged — we were in the process of dealing with them — and then we had that torrential rain,” he said.

Overwhelmed by stormwater, the 70-foot-long, 25-foot wide scow sank below its water line and seams began to open in the dry wood of its topsides, Mr. Box said.

“The more water came in from the rain and from the open seams, the deeper the boat got in the water and it opened ... additional seams,” he said.

The Seeker when it was launched from Vineyard Haven Harbor.

Jeanna Shepard

The Seeker when it was launched from Vineyard Haven Harbor.

Jeanna Shepard

With no engines aboard, the submerged vessel poses no environmental risk to Lake Tashmoo, Mr. Kovack said.

“Thank goodness there is no fuel on board and no hazardous material,” he said. “I notified environmental police and sent them photos, [and] they saw no hazards.”

The swamped scow does pose a potential hazard to navigation, he added.

“That’s my worry, but it couldn’t have happened at a better time,” Mr. Kovack said, noting that seasonally-bustling Lake Tashmoo sees few vessels this time of year.

A first attempt to raise the Seeker after the storm was unsuccessful, Mr. Box said, because water kept welling up through the boat’s large centerboard trunk, a 19-foot by five-inch slot from the deck to the flat-bottomed hull.

Mr. Box, his son Jake and a team of salvagers will make another attempt in early January, he said.

“We’re going to go in the boat and using plywood... we’re going to nail off the top of the centerboard trunk at low tide,” Mr. Box said. “It’s going to be a nasty job, but it can be done.”

Seeker will then be towed out of Lake Tashmoo to the Vineyard Haven Harbor beach owned by Ralph and Dorothy Packer, who have been hosting the scow on their Tashmoo mooring since the vessel was launched in 2018.

“They’re the professionals when it comes to the salvage aspect of it,” Mr. Kovack said.

Once on dry land, the boat is scheduled to be dewatered and its condition assessed. Mr. Box is offering Seeker for sale and had identified a potential buyer before the storm, he said.

Mr. Box said he began building Seeker in 2011 after founding a nonprofit with Island teens and young adults in mind.

“What I wanted to do was to create an experience where at-risk youth could actually flex muscles they didn’t know they had,” he said. “In the process of building it, I was able to fulfill that to a great extend.”

Mr. Box estimated that more than 200 volunteers — including senior citizens as well as younger people — took part in the project.

The learning process was meant to continue once Seeker was on the water, but a series of family and health matters delayed and ultimately derailed Mr. Box’s plan.

“You can only do a project like this if you’re bigger than the project, and I was. But now I don’t feel like I am,” he said.

Mr. Box is 79 and has battled cancer and is now living with Parkinson’s disease.

“It didn’t work out that I was able to complete the project, but it was... of such deep value to the many people that were involved in it,” he said.