A family cruise turned tragic Tuesday afternoon, when a chartered 27-foot boat with 13 people on board capsized on the Hudson River off mid-town Manhattan. A 7-year-old boy and a 47-year-old woman were trapped under the boat and died.
Crew from two New York ferry boats that were nearby pulled many people out of the water, and divers from the NYPD and NYFD found the boy and woman from under the capsized boat. EMS personnel tried to resuscitate them but they were nonresponsive. The owner of the boat, who had been following it on a jet ski, broke down in tears back on the dock when he learned of the deaths.
The boat was a 27-foot Yamaha jet called Stimulus Money. The family chartered it in Elizabeth, New Jersey, for a summer outing.
The NYFD said it got a call about 2:45 saying a boat had capsized in the Hudson and that people were in the water. The accident was opposite West 46th Street, near the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
Meanwhile, the two ferries nearby responded, throwing life jackets and helping people out of the water.
The two who were trapped under the boat and died were Julian Vasquez, 7, from Florida, and Lindelia Vasquez, 47, from Colombia. The captain of the boat was in critical condition in the hospital; police said he was 24 years old and a licensed captain.
Police and fire officials said they had not determined the cause of the accident, although they suggested it may have been overloaded.
Anthony Russo, an inspector with the Harbor Unit, said many factors, including “a lot of commercial, recreational traffic” may have contributed to the capsize. “We had the current, the wind, so you could have wakes approaching from different directions, waves from different directions,” he said. “It takes some skill to operate in the Hudson River.”
On a personal note, I’ve cruised up and down that part of the Hudson many times on a variety of boats, but none as small as 27 feet, and never with more than four people on board. In the summer, New York Harbor and the Hudson up to the Intrepid area are indeed often filled with boats of all sizes (mostly big), throwing off all sorts of wake that then competes with the current. It can easily be daunting. Read more at https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/four-hospitalized-2-critically-after-boat-capsizes-in-hudson-river-near-nyc-pier/ and see the video below:
