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The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a 57-year-old man on Saturday, Oct. 31 after the yacht he was on hit a jetty in Masonboro Inlet and sank.
The 60-foot Somewhere in Time yacht issued a mayday call at 9:57 a.m. A U.S. Coast Guard patrol rescued the boat’s operator, John Wampler, who was not injured. The yacht sank but was salvaged and towed to shore by TowBoatU.S. Another man, Gregory R. Wager of Eastchester, N.Y., was identified in Coast Guard records as the owner of the boat.
It took nearly 27 hours of labor to lift the boat that had sunk in the inlet and tow it to a marina in Wilmington, said Brooks Bridges, owner of the Wrightsville Beach TowBoatU.S.
Crews from TowBoat U.S. arrived at the scene of the wreck shortly after the Coast Guard rescued the boat’s driver, Bridges said. Crews worked for approximately 19 hours to raise the boat and then spent the three hours towing it into Wilmington.
Crews used large lift bags to raise the vessel by attaching it them to the submerged boat and inflating them until it was raised to the surface, Bridges said. Plus, the tow boat crews had to contend with two rock jetties that were by the boat.
“It’s very dangerous work. We had divers in the water and they were working against strong currents,” he said. “Plus, there’s risk of the boat shifting around.”
Bridges said that after the boat collided with the jetty, its struts breached the hull and pushed through the vessel, creating abrasions and sizeable holes in multiple areas.
“Generally, when boats sink, they take a while, but this one went down pretty fast,” Bridges said.
The tow crew also had to contend with leaking fuel. The yacht had 900 gallons of fuel and crews used oil containment booms and absorbent pads to clean up the spilled fuel.
“One of the most important aspects with a salvage operation like this is containing the fuel,” he said. “It worked extremely well, there was virtually no environmental impact.”
The Coast Guard said one of their small response boats was on routine patrol out of the Station Wrightsville Beach when it received the mayday call at 9:37 a.m. on Saturday morning. The boat arrived at the accident scene in three minutes, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard patrol took Wampler, the boat’s operator, to its station. When the patrol returned to the scene, the yacht had already sunk, the Coast Guard said.
