Freighter Sunk to Create New Gulf Reef off Texas' Mustang Island

Ship drops and classic artificial reef making

PORT ARANSAS - The 155-foot Kinta S slipped to her watery grave Wednesday in the Gulf of Mexico off shore from Mustang Island, but the nearly 40-year-old freighter will foster new marine life for years to come.

 Scuttled in 75 feet of water eight miles out into the Gulf as part of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's artificial reef program, the Kinta S is the largest ship to be reefed since the 473-foot Texas Clipper was sunk 17 miles off South Padre Island in 2006.


Launched in Japan in 1976, the formerly Panama-flagged Kinta S will enhance an existing site known as the Corpus Christi Nearshore Reef. The 169-acre reef, composed of 470 concrete pyramids and several thousand tons of concrete culverts, was begun in the fall of 2013. Officially it is known as MU 775. "The Kinta S was just a rusty, outdated cargo vessel with no historical significance, but now she will live on as underwater habitat for marine life and an interesting destination for scuba divers," said Dale Shively, director of the TPWD artificial reef program.

 Since it began in 1990, the Texas artificial reef program has grown into one of the largest such efforts in the nation, with 68 reef sites in the Gulf of Mexico ranging from 40-to-360 acres in extent.

The majority of the reefs are in federal water, which begins nine miles off the Texas coast. Some are up to 100 miles from shore, deepwater habitat for popular species like red snapper.

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