Mystery at marina

All of a sudden, a metal cylinder floated Sunday in Charleston Harbor at Sea Breeze Marina, where Brad Van Liew was stocking his racing boat Le Pingouin for his trans-Atlantic sail. Marina staff fished it out, but nobody could tell what the thing was.

The Charleston Fire Department responded with its hazmat team, fire trucks and an ambulance. Police shut off the entrance road. People at the marina were told to stay put, stay away from the rusted cylinder in a push cart at the far end of the marina. Firefighters had set up a spraying hose to keep it cool, then backed off.

"I'm sitting on the boat. It's some sort of tank. They're treating it like a bomb," Van Liew said Sunday afternoon.

"It floated up all rusted, with no markings and no valve," Assistant Fire Chief Spencer Suggs said. "We're taking the necessary precautions to make sure everything is fine."

It made for a strange tableau, the boat quietly at moor. Out in the harbor a personal water craft shot past. People biked along the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, taking in the sun. Only if you looked close could you see the half-dozen fire and emergency vehicles backed a few hundred yards from the spraying hose, the push cart with the long cylinder sticking up like a rocket.

Van Liew was scheduled to launch in less than 24 hours. His crew manager was outside the marina, unable to get in. Van Liew had to stock for the crossing to France, the starting line for the Velux 5 Oceans race, circumnavigating the world.

"You're trying to go through everything you might forget. You forget one little thing it really upsets your world offshore," he said. Fortunately, they had launched the boat's little runabout, so he could get back and forth on the water.

S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control hazardous material specialists showed up. A thermal imaging camera was set up, and firefighters shut off the hose and waited. The cylinder didn't heat up. Whatever was inside there wasn't going to blow. The cylinder apparently was an oxygen tank, or for some sort of industrial gas. DHEC and firefighters brought in a clean-up crew, still not knowing what they had on their hands.

"We're trying to figure out a way to package it and haul it off," Suggs said.

After more than two hours people were allowed in and out of the marina, past the mysterious cylinder in the push cart.

"Yeah, it's sitting right there. Unbelievable. The small thing, it seemed a little ridiculous," Van Liew said. But the launch was still on for today.

"Eleven o'clock," he said, "we're ready to roll."