Famous SC coastal landmark Folly boat finally finds new home

JAMES ISLAND, South Carolina (AP)―The Folly Boat, a South Carolina landmark, has finally found a new home along the road to one of the state’s most popular beaches more than two years after Hurricane Irma tried to sweep it away.

Crews used a crane and flatbed truck in December to move the boat, an unofficial landmark famous for its hand painted messages, from the private marsh where it ended up after the 2017 hurricane to a bar called The Barrel on Folly Road.

The Folly Boat first became famous in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo washed it up on the road to Folly Beach. Instead of moving it, residents and others started painting homemade messages of love, school spirit, politics and whatever else popped up.

The boat was filled with 40,000 pounds of concrete and steel to keep it in place. But the strong waves and high water from Hurricane Irma washed it away even though the storm made landfall some 300 miles away in Florida.

Bar owner Chad Reynolds said he was proud to be the boat’s new home.

“It’s the Folly Boat,” Reynolds told The Post and Courier of Charleston. “It’s not my boat. It’s everybody’s that’s traveled here. So many people have painted that boat.”