ORLANDO – They sunk the Vandenberg again Thursday.

Okay. It wasn’t the real Vandenberg. That’s securely on the ocean floor, about 6.5 miles to the south of Key West and already home to more than 40 species of marine life.

The same scale model of the Vandenberg, used to establish the technical protocol for the actual May 27 Vandenberg scuttling, was sunk in the Scuba Demonstration Pool at the Dive Equipment Marketing Association’s annual convention in Orlando.

Reefmakers and Stevens Institute of Technology re-created the sinking of the former missile-tracking ship. The Florida Keys & Key West tourism council helped to sponsor the event and created a Florida Keys Wreck Trek vacation giveaway around the event.

The time it took for the model to sink was electronically monitored. Two attendees came within a second of the 18 seconds needed from the time small explosives were detonated, until the model settled on the bottom of the four-foot-deep pool.

Participating resorts include Key Largo’s Amoray Dive Resort, The Islander Resort in Islamorada and Key West’s Doubletree Grand Key Resort. Dive operators include Amoray, Florida Keys Dive Center, Key Dives, Captain Hook’s Dive Center, Horizon Divers and Dive Key West.

For more information on diving in the Keys, visit booth 1270 at DEMA 2009 through Saturday, Nov. 7, call 1-800-FLA-KEYS (352-5397) toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, or explore this Web site.