I would suggest adding a feature, hence metadata, to track recovered and redeployed floats.
A redeployed float would have always 1 or more "parents" floats
A recovered float could have 1 or more "children" floats
WMOxx previously yy previously zz, going backward and forward
This information could appear e.g. in the event log of meta page of a given float, with link to older/newer floats.
I reckon there have been discussion on this topic with @MKrieger29 and Delphine Dobler.