TRACYTON, Wash — Imagine waking up to find a 100-foot vintage yacht washed up on your property.
This was the strange and sudden reality for homeowners along the Dyes Inlet in Tracyton Monday, a quiet and serene jurisdiction in Kitsap County. Now, the neighbors are left to question how they’re going to get their view back.
“I just want to make sure this thing gets pulled out of here and the owner takes care of it,” said Cliff Irvin, who owns the property the vessel landed on.
As the tide gets low, the yacht tilts heavily to the side.
While the area’s recent high winds played a factor, KING 5 came to learn it was only part of the issue. We tracked down the owner, a man who interviewed with us but who preferred we did not share his name.
“We’ve been dealing with an ongoing stalker issue,” said the yacht’s owner.
He claims his yacht washed ashore due to vandalism.
“The new anchor line, the floating line got cut,” he said.
When someone told him that his yacht had started drifting, he said he climbed aboard to find three of his four anchor lines were cut. His lines were extremely thick and more durable than most, and they appeared to have been sliced with a special sharp knife or piece of machinery.
“And then we had this big windstorm and cameras,” he said. “And it would have held with two anchors, but someone had cut another anchor.”
He thinks he knows who did it because he said he has had this issue in the past with other boats he owns.
He even showed us texts he said his girlfriend got back in April after a similar incident with another one of his boats.
The screenshots read, “Hope your boyfriend enjoys his surprise on his trip,” and, “Making you watch him suffer is fun!”
A third text on the screenshot read, “Start chasing!!!!”
He and his girlfriend believe these texts came from the same vandal responsible for cutting the lines of his 100-foot yacht.
He said Bremerton police have now assigned a detective to his police case.
In the meantime, he plans to arrive back at the yacht’s beached location early Wednesday morning to try and tug the yacht back onto the water’s surface safely. He said the U.S. Coast Guard called him and threatened to fine him if he did not get it taken care of soon.
The yacht’s owner says there is no fuel on the vessel and is confident there is no leakage happening. However, the property owners said they are keeping a close eye on it.