https://video.benmook.com/videos/watch/2ffc33d6-4df3-4f13-a6aa-0e51d9437617 Video of the 180' Voici Bernadette in Fort Pierce, FL December 2018. The following was written by Ed Killer at TC Palm...... The Voici Bernadette, a cargo freighter built in 1965 and measuring 180 feet in length, was acquired this week by the St. Lucie County Artificial Reef Program. Thursday morning, crewmen with McCulley Marine Services in Fort Pierce guided the large steel ship from where it had been moored in the Miami River, up the coast and into the waters near the Port of Fort Pierce without incident. The ownership of the freighter was donated to the county by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. The federal agency seized the freighter in June 2016 when it was involved in a cocaine smuggling bust. The Bolivian freighter docked in Miami after leaving Haiti and was found to have 800 bricks of cocaine totaling 2,000 pounds worth an estimated $35 million street value. Recently, acceptance of the vessel was unanimously approved by The St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners. Extensive cleaning and deployment will be completed by the county’s artificial reef contractor, McCulley Marine Services, Inc. St. Lucie County Coastal Resources Supervisor Jim Oppenborn said in a "best-case scenario," deployment of the vessel could take place late this summer. Deployment will occur on the county’s permitted Fort Pierce Sportfishing Club artificial reef site and will help increase recreational opportunities as well as provide essential fish habitat in the region. The 501(c)3, MMPS Environmental, Inc. has already started raising funds for deploying this ship and will organize further events throughout the summer. Costs to prepare the ship for deployment as a reef, meeting permit requirements established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Best Management Practices and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Artificial Reef Plan guidelines, are estimated to be about $147,000 total, Oppenborn said. Deployment will occur on the county’s permitted Fort Pierce Sportfishing Club artificial reef site and will help increase recreational fishing and diving opportunities, as well as provide essential fish habitat in the region. "I am still in the process of doing a stabilization analysis on the ship, so we're not exactly sure how deep she will be when she is deployed," Oppenborn said Thursday. "I hope we can deploy as shallow as possible to make it accessible to divers, too." Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:09:14 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.benmook.com https://video.benmook.com/lazy-static/avatars/298a662a-dfdd-4a9f-b98f-8ffd38337b70.png https://video.benmook.com/videos/watch/2ffc33d6-4df3-4f13-a6aa-0e51d9437617 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.benmook.com/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.