PUT-IN-BAY, Ohio — After looking for decades, a Put-in-Bay man in his mid-80s has brought an old Coast Guard utility boat back to Lake Erie.
It’s not just any boat — for Marv Booker, it’s the one he served on years ago when he was stationed there.
Booker would have been lucky to find one like it. But he found the actual boat, number 40587.
“It is,” said Booker, “Yes.”
Booker never forgot the boat and never stopped looking for it. He searched magazines and trade publications for years.
“Every month for about 50-plus years,” Booker's son, Eric, said.
A few years ago, Eric was the first one to actually see the boat after Booker found it for sale in Massachusetts.
The family bought it and brought it back to Put-in-Bay, where Booker has built his life. Three generations helped get the boat back on Lake Erie. Booker's granddaughter, Audrey Sheehan, is a boat captain herself.
“His dream … it’s cool to just kind of see it come true,” she said.
It took a few years to get it ready, but everyone pitched in.
“He had this dream,” Eric said.
Finding the boat and getting it ready for the water brought back a lot of memories and gave Booker's family a chance to make some new ones.
You can find the family and the boat at Put-in-Bay. They now give guided tours, so visitors can be part of the history, too.
After all his years on Lake Erie, Booker was recently asked if it ever gets old.
“Well, it hasn’t yet,” he said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
