Community Corner
Stay With The Boat To Avoid Tragedy
Bob Cusack says tragedies like the recent one in Boston Harbor can be avoided.
The recent tragedy off Graves Light in Boston Harbor might have been avoided.
Around 6:50 p.m. on Saturday August 14, a small pleasure boat with three people on board started taking on water and radioed a Mayday call to the Coast Guard on VHF channel 16. The Coast Guard and others immediately responded and found two people clinging to the boat, which ultimately sank.
The responders discovered that a third person had abandoned the boat and had started swimming toward Graves Light. The Coast Guard air station on Cape Cod launched a helicopter, and along with other rescue assets searched through the night for the missing boater.
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The person was finally located about 11 a.m. Sunday morning. He did not survive while the people who stayed with the boat not only survived, but were rescued a short time after their distress call.
The lesson in this case and all other cases like it -- stay with the boat, stay with the boat, stay with the boat.
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Finding a person even one wearing a large "type one" life jacket in the middle of a 30-mile square area at night is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
So please for your sake and your friends and family stay with the boat. I hope to be able, later, to show pictures comparing what one person in the water and those hanging onto a swamped boat look like from a Coast Guard helicopter.
