It took salvage crews less than an hour to put a 408-foot casino boat on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Argosy VI, a four-storey barge that once worked as a riverboat casino in Indiana, was sunk on Wednesday about 23 nautical miles south of Orange Beach, Alabama. It now sits in 122 feet of water, and the top of the structure lies just below 60 feet beneath the surface. A sonar check afterward confirmed it had settled on the seabed. The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) says it is the state’s largest artificial reef.
A year of preparation
The sinking itself was passive. Salvage crews pulled wooden plugs at the stern and let seawater fill the hull slowly. Getting to that point took more than a year. Workers had to remove environmental hazards and strip out the interior first.
The $2.5 million project was paid for through the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, known as GOMESA, which sends a share of offshore oil and gas leasing revenue to Gulf states. Alabama bought the vessel last year with that money. It had sat unused at the docks in Bayou La Batre, along with another casino boat, since before Hurricane Sally hit in 2020.
What the reef is for
The seabed off Alabama is mostly flat, said Craig Newton, fisheries section supervisor at ADCNR. A hull this size gives corals, tunicates, shrimp and small fish somewhere to settle, and they in turn draw larger reef fish such as red snapper and triggerfish. “It’s a matter of producing more reef fish where you didn’t have any fish,” Newton said. “Without these artificial reefs, the fish would not exist.” He added that the reef will give marine life more habitat and help absorb nutrients flowing out of Mobile Bay.
Marine Resources Director Kevin Anson called a vessel this large a rare opportunity. Fish could begin gathering almost at once, he said, with red snapper possibly arriving soon after. Officials expect a wide variety of marine life within about a year.
The alternative was the scrapyard. “It’s rejuvenating its life,” Newton said. “Otherwise, it was destined for the scrap yard.” He said the spot is likely the farthest offshore the ship has ever been.
The Argosy VI went down near two existing artificial reefs, New Venture and The LuLu, both already popular dive sites. ADCNR says the state’s artificial reef program covers about 1,060 square miles of Gulf waters, the largest system of its kind in the United States. The department expects the new reef to draw recreational divers and offshore anglers and to support the local charter fishing and diving industry.
