ORMOND BEACH — A 77-foot commercial shrimping boat out of Key West ran aground on Ormond Beach, giving beachgoers a close-up gaze at the 150-ton vessel Tuesday morning as the U.S. Coast Guard worked to get it pulled back out of the sand.

The shrimping boat, named the AMG, was reported taking on water and ran aground just north of the Cardinal Drive beach approach about 8:23 p.m. Monday, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.

A picture showed what appeared to be an outrigger possibly propping the boat up so that it would not fall over.

A tug crew from Jacksonville has been contacted to come free the boat.

A man at the Driftwood Ocean Resort called 9-1-1 to report the boat about 100 to 200 feet off shore in calm water.

“There’s a boat looks like it’s in trouble. It is a humongous boat,” the man said.

He said he was watching from the second-floor as the boat, buffeted by waves, rocked closer to the beach. He said he saw at least two people on board trying to save the boat.

“They can’t get out and you can hear the bottom hitting,” the man said. “You can hear the guys yelling on deck. I heard a “help” but I don’t know if that’s him communicating to one of his guys or what. But they are getting closer and closer to being totally beached.”

He said it looked like the boat was going to capsize.

“You can hear the thunking of the bottom hitting,” he said.

He said he did not see anyone wearing life jackets.

“They’re close enough they could have jumped out of the boat and walked in,” he said. “Like, they are trying to save the boat. But they are having very bad difficulty.”

There were no reports of injuries among the crew, said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Dickinson on Tuesday morning.

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said.

He said the Coast Guard has a team at the site to check for any possible pollution coming from the grounded boat but none has been reported so far.

Passers-by glanced at the boat sitting in the surf Tuesday at low tide. Dickinson said there is no timeline for removing the boat and it may need to be towed off the beach.

He did not know what caused the boat to run aground and he added that he was not aware of any rough seas last night.

The Coast Guard has contacted the boat’s crew, he said. But Dickinson said he did not have the name of the owner.

The AMG is registered in Coast Guard records as a commercial fishing vessel owned by Son Hung Dang of Biloxi, Mississippi. The steel-hulled boat was built in 1987 and its home port is Key West.

The boat has a gross tonnage of 152 tons, about the same weight as 60 regular-duty pickup trucks.

Bigger boats have run aground in the past in this area but usually they aren’t as large as the AMG.

In May 2014, a 36-foot boat named the Big Buddy ran aground near Ponce Inlet and Disappearing Island. Seven people were rescued from the boat, which began to flood at high tide. The boat’s owner hired a commercial salvage company to pull it free.

And a boat stolen from the Daytona Marina and Boat Works ran aground in June 2017 in Daytona Beach.

Jonathan Race, 21, was accused of stealing the boat. Race told Daytona Beach Police he had blacked out after drinking a couple of Four Lokos, which can be as strong as 14 percent alcohol by volume and didn’t remember what happened. But police said they found his shorts and ID on the boat.

Race pleaded no contest to two counts of burglary of an unoccupied conveyance and grand theft. Circuit Judge Matt Foxman placed him on probation for seven years and withheld adjudication, meaning if Race successfully completes probation he won’t have a conviction on his record.

A heavy tug and barge crew out of Jacksonville is being dispatched to pull the boat off the beach, said Nick Foster, the owner of SeaTow Daytona, which is not involved in the recovery.

He said it typically takes a day for the tug from Jacksonville to arrive.

“That boat is pretty far up on the beach,” Foster said. “They are going to need a lot of horsepower to get that vessel moved.”

But he added it was fortunate that no fuel has spilled and no one on the crew was injured. Such boats typically have a crew of two or three.

Pulling the large shrimp boat off the beach won’t be easy since the wet sand creates suction and the boat sinks into the sand.

“The longer it sits there, the more of a concern it becomes,” he said.

ORMOND BEACH — The crew on the shrimp boat aground on Ormond Beach for more than a week made a break for the ocean Thursday morning but a broken anchor line along with the winds and waves beat them back.

The Coast Guard has given the crew the green light to try to free the boat Saturday. But on Thursday the crew decided on their own to try to make a run for the open ocean.

The boat’s engine could be heard occasionally over the surf and puffs of black smoke burst from its exhaust pipes as it bobbed, pointed toward the Atlantic about 7:30 a.m. But a 1½-inch line attached to a 550-pound anchor severed before the crew could get clear of a sandbar.

The 77-foot boat then drifted about 200 yards south, nearly even with the Cardinal Drive beach approach where it lodged in the sand.

The sea and the wind pushed the boat and the anchor line in different directions, cutting the line, said crew member Ryan Smith, 31, of Jacksonville.

“When it cut the anchor we spun around. After we spun around it just pushed us back onto the beach,” Smith said.

Coincidentally, the boat, loaded with 2½ tons of shrimp, was originally aground over the wreck of the Nathan F. Cobb, a 167-foot schooner that ran aground on Dec. 5, 1896. A post with a sign had warned beachgoers of the wreck buried in the sand. The crew of the shrimping boat tied a line to the post overnight to help them turn the shrimping boat toward the sea. But in the effort the post broke. What was left of the post was on the beach near the Cardinal approach.

Late Thursday morning, the three-person crew on the boat used a line to lower themselves into the surf and wade ashore. Capt. Kenneth Thomas, 33, of Jacksonville, said they came close to getting the boat free.

“If we would have had another 100 feet, we would have made it,” Thomas said.

The boat crashed ashore about 8:23 p.m. Oct. 15 north of the Cardinal Drive approach. Thomas said that night they had been sleeping on the vessel about a mile east of Ormond Beach after a long day of shrimping. The boat’s reverse gear had broken several days earlier. As the crew slept, the anchor line broke. The crew, though, didn’t wake until they heard the boat’s steel hull thudding against the shallow shore on the beach.

Without a reverse gear, the crew couldn’t keep the craft from grounding, Thomas said.

“It was just pure-blooded bad luck,” Thomas said.

He said the boat’s owner had lined up a tug and a digger boat to free the vessel.

Then Thomas raised his voice.

“But the Coast Guard has had our plan for five days and has not approved it,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the longer the boat remained stuck the more of a beating it took.

He said the Coast Guard was concerned about the use of the digger boat near the remains of the Nathan F. Cobb.

It will cost $80,000 to pull the shrimp boat free, he said. And while the boat is insured, he said the policy does not cover the grounding.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Dickinson said Thursday that approval of a salvage plan takes time to make sure everything is done correctly.

“We just want to make sure everything is done safely,” Dickinson said.

The Coast Guard press release said that weather and other conditions permitting salvage operations could begin on Saturday. No exact time was provided but it would likely be during high tide.

Thomas said the boat is loaded with 5,000 pounds of shrimp and the generator is working so it’s still good.

Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue released this information about 11 a.m. in a tweet: “An attempt was made this morning to remove the AMG, a grounded shrimp boat, from the shoreline in Ormond Beach. Unfortunately, the crew couldn’t clear the shore break bar and the anchor line snapped, causing the AMG to wash back ashore.”

The AMG, according to federal records, is based in Key West and owned by Son Hung Dang of Biloxi, Mississippi. But Smith said that information was outdated. He said the boat was purchased about six months ago by a Paul Moise and is based in Cocoa.

Coast Guard investigators have declined to provide any information on why the shrimping boat ran aground.

The plight of the shrimp boat has drawn locals and tourists who make regular pilgrimages to check on the boat and its crew.

A man walked up and offered a case of beer to Smith, who declined. A woman brought the crew food from McDonald’s. Another woman offered to let them use a hotel room to get some sleep.

Kim Fry, 60, of New Lexington, Ohio, danced on the beach and prayed for the shrimp boat and its crew.

“I’ve been out here for over an hour,” Fry said, “just worshipping and dancing on the beach and praying to God that he pick the boat up and turn it around because nothing is too difficult for him.”

Smith, the crewman, said they did a good job getting the boat turned around.

“There’s not a fisherman alive that’s able to turn a fishing boat around like we did,” he said. “And it’s only by the grace of God.”

ORMOND BEACH — Markus Wesley had started but never finished a song about the Nathan F. Cobb, a schooner that ran aground 122 years ago at Ormond Beach.

So when a shrimp boat named the AMG suffered the same fate on Oct. 15, right on top of the Cobb’s wreckage, it was like a message from the musical muses. Wesley was inspired to finish his song.

On Friday morning, two hours after finishing the song, Wesley was filming himself as he strummed his guitar and sang his ode to the stricken schooner. Behind him the bright sun rose over the beached shrimp boat.

“It’s not every day you get a back drop like this to record your material,” Wesley said.

That backdrop, though, might be gone on Saturday which is the soonest a salvage company can attempt to drag the boat off the sand where it was lodged Friday at the Cardinal Drive approach in Ormond Beach.

The Coast Guard has approved a salvage plan to commence no sooner than Saturday, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Dickinson on Friday. But he said that exactly when to begin the operation was up to the salvage company.

Any attempt to pull the 77-foot boat off the beach would likely have to be done around high-tide which on Saturday is at 10:19 a.m. and 10:38 p.m.

The shrimp boat initially ran aground over the wreckage of the schooner north of Cardinal Drive. After being stuck for a while, crew tried to drive it out to sea on Thursday.

But a perfect storm of wind, waves and a cut anchor line sent the shrimp boat about 150 to 200 yards south on Thursday morning to a new home right about even with the Cardinal Drive approach.

Friday morning Wesley was singing and playing his guitar as gawkers continued checking out the boat, taking selfies and pictures.

Wesley said he grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and has been writing music since he was a child. He moved to Ormond Beach eight years ago and lives a few blocks from the beach.

Wesley, who works security at the Daytona Auto Mall, said he learned about the Cobb when he saw a sign on the beach warning about the wooden schooner’s wreckage lying beneath the sand.

That sign is gone now, torn out overnight Thursday in the shrimp boat’s failed break for the sea.

The Nathan F. Cobb, a 167-foot wooden schooner ran aground on Dec. 15, 1896, after losing its three masts in a storm and drifting for three days.

News-Journal columnist Mark Lane wrote recently about the wreck and how residents saved the six crew members aboard the Cobb and cared for them until they recovered from exposure.

The incident though was not without a casualty. A bookkeeper at the Ormond Hotel drowned during the rescue attempt and his body was never found.

Wesley said that after the shrimp boat ran aground family encouraged him to complete the song about the Cobb.

He titled it the “Wind and Waves of Ormond Beach.”

“I finished it and it turned out great,” he said.

He said he may try to pitch the song if he thinks it has commercial potential. He still knows some people in Nashville.

Wesley’s lyrics go in part:

“I dream of a shoreline/that’s not so far out of reach/with one last roll she’ll offer up my soul/to the wind and waves of Ormond Beach.”

ORMOND BEACH — A shrimp boat aground on Ormond Beach disappeared in the middle of the night when a tug boat finally pulled it out to sea, leaving in its wake thousands of pictures and memories.

The AMG ran around on Oct. 15 just north of the Cardinal Drive approach and immediately became the backdrop for thousands of photographs, videos and selfies from curious visitors. It drifted south about 150 to 200 yards to the Cardinal Drive approach last week when the crew made a failed break for the sea.

After nearly a day of pulling, a tugboat was finally able to free the shrimp boat at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Some people were walking away a little disappointed after daylight Wednesday, including 3-year-old Daniel Lucas. His grandmother Claudia Ehringer brought him to see the shrimp boat and get some pictures of him posing with the boat.

“I brought a pirate costume for my grandson to wear, and the boat is already gone,” Ehringer said.

No worries. Daniel seemed to be having fun just playing on the sand.

On Tuesday, it seemed like the shrimp boat would see another sunrise stuck on the sand of Ormond Beach.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Luke Clayton said on Tuesday afternoon that salvage operations were not authorized at night.

But on Wednesday morning, Clayton said that U.S. Coast Guard Sector Cmdr. Todd Weimer had decided to authorize nighttime operations because the tow boat had pulled the shrimp boat about 100 yards from the beach. That lessened safety concerns, he said.

Clayton said he only became aware the shrimp boat was gone on Wednesday morning.

He said the shrimp boat was being towed to the North Florida Shipyard in Jacksonville.

Warren Cross, 63, of Ormond Beach, was pulling a small wagon with some chairs to the beach. He said he sometimes fishes and sometimes he just sits and relaxes on the beach.

The shrimp boat, though, was making relaxing difficult, he said.

“I’m glad it’s gone. It’s less crowded around here, and you can get back to a more peaceful lifestyle. It was like spring break yesterday.”

On Tuesday, several hundred people turned out on the beach to watch the tug begin to try to haul the shrimp boat away. Along with the several hundred spectators came at least two drones that buzzed over the boats. News helicopters choppered above. News people interviewed bystanders.

The shrimp boat was originally grounded above the remains of the Nathan F. Cobb, a wooden schooner that ran aground on Dec. 5, 1896, about 150 to 200 yards north of the Cardinal Drive approach. A sign posted there had warned about the remains of the schooner buried in the sand. But the sign is now gone. The post holding it was broken last week when the shrimp boat crew tied the vessel to it as they attempted to free the boat.

Frank Wissel, 66, of Ontario, Canada, said he has watched the shrimp boat for two weeks and would miss the vessel, which had become an attraction.

“It’s something different,” Wissel said. “It’s not something you see all the time.”