The Coast Guard rescued a family of six and their dog after their 72-foot trawler capsized and sank at 3 a.m. about five miles off Key West earlier this week. The family had abandoned ship after water started flooding in from the starboard engine compartment. “I knew we were going down,” one of the sons, Joshua Frame, said on a Facebook video (pictured above). They clung on to each other and treaded water as they drifted for 45 minutes before the Coast Guard, responding to their EPIRB signal, rescued them. All six, three men and three women, including a 78-year-old grandmother, were not injured.
Frame said they were cruising from Marco Island to Key West on Bauhinia, the family’s Chinese-built trawler. He was on the bridge with his father when the weather deteriorated in six-foot following seas. Then a high-water alarm went off. Frame went below and inspected the port engine compartment, and there was nothing wrong. Then he opened the starboard compartment and saw water rushing in.
He yelled for everyone to put on life jackets. His mother activated the EPIRB as water rushed into the companionway to the master stateroom and the boat started listing to 45 degrees. His father set the anchor in 30-foot water and the family jumped off the stern into the water, clutching each other and shining two spotlights in the air.
About 45 minutes later the Coast Guard found them, having seen the lights. The Coast Guard 45-foot response boat initially had gone to the original location of the EPIRB signal, but they didn’t find anything; the boat had already gone under. The family had drifted some distance from the sinking.
Back on land, Frame realized that “everything is gone.” The family did not have the boat insured; they were working on it to get it in better shape before insuring it.
You can see Frame’s emotional Facebook video on the Cruising Odyssey Facebook page here:
http://facebook.com/cruisingodyssey/
