The group of military veterans that runs the naval museum wants to restore the sub as an attraction but sees no help on the horizon. They have no money to even replace the gangplank on the Ling, the only remaining high-speed submarine from World War II.

No one else seems to consider the Ling their responsibility — not the Navy or any governmental entity, and certainly not the Borg family.

“It’s not on our property — it’s in the river and we don’t own the river,” said Malcolm A. Borg, 79, former chairman of The Record whose father, Donald G. Borg, helped obtain the sub when he was editor and publisher.

“He thought it would be a wonderful attraction,” Malcolm Borg said of the now-languishing vessel.

“Its tragic — it’s rusting through in a number of places,” he said. “It would take a lot of permits to get that boat out of there. It’s stuck in the mud.”

Les Altschuler, vice president of the Submarine Memorial Association, which runs the New Jersey Naval Museum, said his group was still active and controlled the vessel but had neither the money nor the ability to move the Ling, especially since the museum had to close, curtailing revenue from admission fees and small donations.

“We tried a GoFundMe and barely got $25,” he said of the fund-raising website. “Nobody cares about it.”

Mr. Altschuler, who said he trained on the Ling in the early 1960s while in the Navy, said it needed at least 17 feet of water to be moved. These days, people could traipse through the muck to the vessel at low tide. Mr. Altschuler said that the vessel was still buoyant but that he had been told by government officials that there was scant chance of the river being dredged again.