11-foot trophy shark now haunting a shipwreck off the SC coast — and it’s not leaving
Something that looks exactly like an 11-foot great white shark is now permanently haunting a shipwreck 13 miles off South Carolina’s Edisto Island.
The 2,800-pound life-like sculpture was welded to the deck of a barge and both were sunk this week as part of an artificial reef program.
Is it a tourist attraction or one heck of a practical joke? Either way, the S.C. Department of Natural Resources gets points for creativity in boosting the state’s fishing and diving industries.
The visual gag was suggested by Robert Martore of the Marine Resources Division and Office of Fisheries Management.
“We build many different artificial reef structures here at SCDNR, most of which are utilitarian. I asked our crew to get creative. They took that directive to heart,” Martore told McClatchy News.
“One of our biologists, Brent Merritt, first designed a 2-D shark made from welded steel rebar. While planning this, he decided it could probably be made in 3-D almost as easily, so he and the other reef program biologists, Ryan Yaden and Joe Alston, started construction.”
The team covered Merritt’s frame with wire mesh, then added a layer of burlap, then covered that with mortar and concrete. Merritt finished it off with gills, nasal vents, and lots of pearly white teeth.
It took almost a year to finish, due partly to interruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Martore said.
The barge is part of an elaborate artificial reef program that also includes ships, sections of bridges, subway cars and military vehicles. The wrecks attract marine life — including real sharks — which in turn attracts anglers, divers and photographers.
Sea life is expected to colonize the barge in the next six to 12 months, experts say.
Martore says it’s not the first time they have fastened something odd to one of the doomed ships and barges.
“This is the largest structure that could be called art, but not necessarily the first,” he says.
“To practice their welding skills, they created a steel anglerfish and a steel Death Star (from ‘Star Wars’) that we put out about 2 years ago. Also, about 10 years ago a local artist created 2 small concrete cherubim as a memorial that we placed on a reef.”
The Coastal Conservation Association South Carolina, which is a partner in the reef effort, says the “massive” 260-foot-long barge had a pay load that included “12 shipping containers ... along with pieces of the old water tower recently dismantled off Mt. Pleasant.”
“It is potentially the largest near shore structure ever deployed in the program’s history,” the association reported on Facebook.
This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 6:54 PM with the headline "11-foot trophy shark now haunting a shipwreck off the SC coast — and it’s not leaving."