County set to auction off abandoned Milwaukee Boat as “piece of art”

It’s been just over a month since Milwaukee company All City Towing successfully towed the Milwaukee Boat, a.k.a. the S.S. Minnow, the S.S. Milwaukee, Deep Thought, or just The Boat. The Boat had been abandoned and stranded between McKinley and Bradford beaches since October 13, 2024.

The cost of the May 6, 2025 towing operation? Fifty-thousand dollars. Who’s on the hook for that $50,000? With the Mississippi-based owners of The Boat out of the picture and the craft legally classified as abandoned, Milwaukee County is on the hook.

At a meeting of the Committee on Parks and Culture on Tuesday, County officials discussed how to recoup that $50,000—a “do not exceed” total given to All City by Milwaukee County. Last month, the Daniel W. Hoan Foundation donated $10,000 to the effort. Earlier, an anonymous donor promised an additional $20,000; that money has yet to be collected, but the “intent is still there,” said County officials.

So what about the remaining $20,000? Well, the County is preparing to put The Boat up for auction, of course—not as a functioning vessel, but as a sculpture or a “piece of art.”

October 18, 2024

January 6, 2025

February 1, 2025

May 2, 2025

“We typically auction off fleet vehicles, or vehicles that have some sort of transportation utility,” explained Jim Tarantino, Deputy Director for Milwaukee County Parks, on Tuesday. “In this case, that boat is never going to float again without significant investment. It’s really more like a piece of art. It’s more like a sculpture at this point.”

Tarantino said it’s a “matter of days or weeks, not months” before the auction is made public.

If a full-craft auction doesn’t work out, the County could explore selling pieces of The Boat. But that option comes with its own costs.

“People have offered to purchase little pieces of it,” Tarantino said. “We’ve looked at that scenario of how much time it would take to chop apart different pieces of the mural side of the boat….to cut it up into hundreds of pieces. We may be able to recover something like ten to $15,000, but it would cost us four to $8,000 in labor and time.”

The Boat is currently sitting in All City’s lot. Here it was on May 27:

Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman thanked All City for its successful operation on Tuesday, and gave shout-outs to Jerry Guyer, whose Silo Marina company attempted to salvage The Boat numerous times during its nearly seventh-month residency. Wasserman agreed that a full auction should be pursued, but noted that there was indeed interest in buying small pieces of The Boat.

“I’ve had people wanting to buy the ‘A’ in ‘Aliens,’ or the ‘Deep Thought’ in the back of the boat,” he said. “I’ve had some bars approach me. They want to put pieces in their bars as one of their souvenirs. So there’s an interest.”

Could the County still pursue legal action against the owners, Richard and Sherry Wells of Mississippi? Officials said that a legal effort would be akin to “drilling a dry well,” and that “the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.”

The Wells have been mostly MIA since abandoning The Boat on October 13, 2024. Sherry’s dramatic story of how and why they abandoned The Boat—a story left as a Google Maps review—is worth a read. Ditto our “sailor’s response” article. (Our song about The Boat is worth a listen, too.)