Browsing: Boat accidents

Cruising Life
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Ferry Captain Disoriented by Fog, Goes Wrong Way, Sinks Yacht

Here’s a report from the BBC about how a ferry boat captain became disoriented in fog, went the wrong way, and crashed into a yacht off the Isle of Wight: Cowes ferry yacht-crash captain ‘lost control in fog’ A ferry captain became disoriented in dense fog and ended up going in the wrong direction and crashing into a yacht, a report has concluded. The Red Funnel car ferry sunk Nigel Minchin’s yacht when it ran aground off the Isle of Wight in October 2018, leaving people stranded for hours. Investigators found Red Falcon’s captain became “overloaded due to high stress” as…

Cruising Life
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Coast Guard Ends Search for 3 Missing After Tugs Collide

The Coast Guard suspended its search for three crewmen who were missing after two towing boats collided at mile marker 123 in the Mississippi River near Luling, Louisiana. The collision occurred about 5:30 on Sunday morning. The Coast Guard says the towing vessel Cooperative Spirit was going upriver when it entered a barge fleeting area and hit some barges before colliding with the towing vessel RC Creppel. Four crew from the RC Creppel were thrown into the water. The boat sank in the river. A good Samaritan boat recovered one of the crew. The Coast Guard sent three search-and-rescue boats…

On Watch with Peter Janssen
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Yacht Sinks Off Puerto Rico; Coast Guard Rescues 4

The Coast Guard rescued four people from a life raft after their boat sank 25 miles northwest of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, on Sunday morning. One of the men lost parts of two fingers while deploying the raft, but he kept them on ice and flew to Cornell Medical Center in New York where they were reattached. The boat, a Marlow 76 named Clam Chowder, from Shelter Island, New York, was on its way from Puerto Rico to the Turks and Caicos when it suffered a catastrophic failure. Four people were on board. The owner, was not. The boat spent the…

Cruising Life
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Navy, Coast Guard Boats Collide in Alaska, 9 Hurt

By: Navy Times staff A Wednesday evening collision involving a Coast Guard craft and a Navy boat in Alaska’s Womens Bay left at least nine personnel injured, one seriously. Coast Guard Alaska 17th District spokesman Scott McCann told Navy Times that six enlisted members of his service’s Aids to Navigation Team Kodiak were treated and released after suffering light injuries. Three Navy personnel also were treated, with one seriously injured sailor being flown to Anchorage for special care. “It was worse than the others,” McCann said. Although the collision occurred around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday just east of Coast Guard Base…

Cruising Life
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NTSB Criticizes Coast Guard in Fatal Duck Boat Sinking

The National Transportation Safety Board has just criticized the Coast Guard for ignoring suggestions about improving the safety of duck boats for almost 20 years. The proposals possibly could have prevented the sinking of a duck boat, known as Stretch Duck 7, in a storm on July 23, 2018, on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri, killing 17 people on board. The criticism came in a NTSB Safety Recommendation Report even while the federal agency is still investigating the sinking. The NTSB is urging the Coast Guard to require sufficient reserve buoyancy on duck boats (amphibious passenger vessels similar to…

Cruising Life
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Yacht Crashes While Captain and Mate Have Sex on Bow

I’ve never seen a story like this before, as reported in Australia’s Daily Mail. According to court documents there, the captain of a charter yacht, Crystal Blue, and a deck hand were having sex on the bow while the boat crashed into a nav beacon and another yacht on the northern part of the Gold Coast. The accident, in March, 2018, caused $140,000 damage to the Crystal Blue. The deck hand, Cheya Handley, said she had been drinking beer and vodka with the captain, Jeremy Kane Piggott. They were bringing the boat back home from a charter up the Brisbane…

Cruising Life
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Speedboat Crashes Into Boats and Gets Stuck in Dock Roof on Lake of the Ozarks

We usually don’t cover stories about out-of-control speedboats on the Lake of the Ozarks (or anywhere else, for that matter). But this one is just too bizarre to ignore. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says that at 9:45 on the night before the Fourth of July, Rick Hansen, 66, from Wilton, Iowa, was driving his 2003 Baja speedboat down the lake when he crashed into a covered floating dock with a lot of boats at Spring Branch Cove. The Baja hit one boat at the end of the dock and then launched itself up and into the dock’s roof, coming…

Cruising Life
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“Hit-And-Run” Driver Kills Diver in Australia

The man whom police described as the driver pf a “hit-and-run-on-the-water” surrendered to authorities in Australia after they said he ran down and killed a scuba diver there. They had been searching for him for more than a day. The accident occurred on a clear Sunday afternoon several hundred yards offshore in Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne. The victim and a friend, both 29 years old, were scuba diving. The friend had waved down a nearby boat to make sure the driver could see them, before he found the victim lifeless in the water. A passing commercial boat picked up…

Cruising Life
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Controversy Grows Over Lighting on Government Cut Jetties After Recent Crash

The controversy is growing about lighting on the jetties marking Government Cut in Miami after a crash last week killed three people and seriously injured a fourth when their 32-foot center console hit the north jetty at 9:20 at night. The two jetties marking the entrance to the cut are not lighted, although they are clearly marked on charts. After the latest crash, Fabiola Santiago wrote an opinion story in the Miami Herald with the headline, How Many More Boaters Must Die Before We Properly Light Treacherous Government Cut? “This is a story of deaths foretold,” she wrote. The crash last…

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Captain of Princess 60 That Killed Fisherman on 23-Foot Center Console Sentenced to Two Years’ Probation

Here’s the final chapter of a tragic story we’ve been covering since Sept. 22, 2015. A U.S. District Court Judge has just put the captain of a Princess 60 that ran over and killed an 81-year-old man on his 23-foot Steiger Craft center console off Westerly, Rhode Island, on two years’ probation. The judge also ordered the captain, Cooper “Chick” Bacon 80, to pay $1,800 restitution for the removal of the ruined center console and said he could not operate any boat larger than 26 feet. At the time of the accident, Bacon, who had a Coast Guard license, was…

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