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'You couldn't believe your eyes'; Sinking renews worries about wakes, overloading boats
By Stephen Tait , Staff Writer
Eagle-Tribune
NEWBURYPORT - The first wake hit the overloaded, 17-foot-long boat and got it rocking back and forth.
The second one filled the vessel with so much water that it started to sink, and its nine passengers "just kind of floated out of the boat," said Don Jansen, Salisbury's assistant harbormaster.
Jansen said that's the way the owners of a Stingray, open-bow boat described how their vessel sank just outside the mouth of the Merrimack River Sunday by waves likely the product of a larger boat's wake.
The boat's nine passengers - four adults and five children - were each plucked from the river by fellow boaters.
Kenneth Palmer of Haverhill, the boat's owner, said his boat was "swamped" by a wave, one he could not say for sure was the wake from a boat or an ocean wave.
"It's not a good feeling," he said. "Being the one driving the boat, I was very nervous about everybody being safe. When it happened, I knew the boat was going to go down."
Palmer will likely be cited for reckless operation of a boat since the limit for his vessel is eight passengers and 1,200 pounds, Jansen said.
"It was just too many people on a small boat," U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Westbrook said. "It was definitely overloaded."
Palmer did not comment about having an extra person aboard the boat. He did say he is an experienced boater - the 17-foot boat being his third - and has often driven through the mouth of the Merrimack.
"It was not the first time going through there," he said.
Officials say the rescue helps highlight two boating hazards in the Merrimack River: the dangers of overloading a small boat and the wakes of large boats. Both circumstances can cause boats to sink and put passengers in danger, officials said.
The wakes in the mouth of the river and just outside it can be huge, caused when fishermen and recreational boaters accelerate their vessels to get to their destinations quickly.
"People tend to not really pay attention to their wake," Jansen said. "They just kind of gun it to try to get where they are going, and they never really look back to see what they are causing with their wake."
Overloaded
Salisbury installs no-wake buoys for travel in the mouth, where the waterway narrows and many fishermen anchor to cast a line hoping to hook a striper or bluefish making its way in or out of the river. Salisbury Harbormaster Ray Pike said the no-wake buoys help to protect the boats anchored there, so wakes don't capsize the vessels.
But Pike said it is not fair to apply that argument to Sunday's accident because the boat was overloaded.
"If you have an overloaded boat, you are more likely to sink," he said. "It is not safe to overload. That explains why boats sink so often."
Jansen said the water was "a little bit choppy at the mouth" about 4:30 p.m. when the boat took on water. But, he said, Palmer's boat is not a big one, and its freeboard - the amount of boat above the waterline - is very short, making it unsafe for the mouth of the Merrimack.
"This boat is not made for that kind of environment and that kind of load," Jansen said.
The boat, a Stingray, is open bow, which means passengers can sit on benches in the front of the boat. It is used mostly for recreational use, not fishing.
The boat sank quickly, Jansen said.
After calling Mayday over the radio, the boat was underwater within two or three minutes, Jansen said. When Jansen arrived at the scene, five minutes after the Mayday call, the boat was underwater, and all the passengers had already been plucked out of the river by other boaters.
"They scooped up the people in the water pretty quickly," Jansen said. "It was one of those times boaters pull together. It really goes to show people are willing to help."
Marian Reilly, a boater on the Merrimack River since the early 1990s, saw Palmer's boat go down in the river. She said "it was like something you hope you never see."
"Within a matter of seconds, everybody but (the driver), just fell out the back of the boat," she said. "It was like you couldn't believe your eyes. There was a lot of screaming; there was a lot of miscellaneous debris floating around in the mouth. The current was taking the people out pretty quickly.
"Everybody in the boat was panicking. This happened very quickly."
Reilly, who was in a 41-foot sailboat, said they did not pick anyone out of the river since more mobile speedboats were helping.
Just before the Stingray sank, she said they saw a boat zoom by the 17-foot vessel and send water over its side. She said it looked like the boat's motor had taken on water and lost power because the boat was not making any headway.
"I yelled to the guy, 'You're taking on water, you're overloaded,'" Reilly said. "Then I just yelled 'life jackets.'"
Reilly said there is a problem with larger boats creating wakes that endanger boats like Palmer's and put people in life-threatening situations.
"A 17-foot boat with that many people, in that situation, you don't fly past one of those boats," she said. "I think it really needs to be brought to the attention of the community to be a little more forgiving in that area and to be more aware of the other boaters.
"It is a chronic problem through there."
The boat's passengers included four adults, two 8-year-olds, two 13-year-olds and a 15-year-old.
Jansen said he is sure the four youngest wore life jackets at the time of the sinking, and he believed the 15-year-old did as well, but he was not sure. By law, anyone 12 years old or younger must wear a life jacket and there must be enough life jackets on board a vessel to accommodate everyone aboard.
"If these kids didn't have any sort of life jacket on at that very moment, this situation could've been very different," Reilly said.
Once the boat took on water, Palmer said the boat sank in about a minute. The first thing he said he did was gather extra life jackets for people to grab while in the river.
"It was very fast," he said. "I just went into getting anything I could to the people on the boat. It wasn't a long time. The way that water was moving, I wanted to make sure everyone was making it to the boats.
"We are glad to be safe," he said. "All the other boaters really rallied for us and got us onto their boats."
Mike Goodridge, the owner of Tow Boat U.S. in Newburyport, salvaged the boat, which bobbed in the river after sinking. He said his company towed the boat, drained it and delivered it back to the owner.
"It was floating, bow up," he said. "The bow was sticking out of the water. It was pretty much vertical."
In the end, Jansen said, the passengers of the boat took the sinking "pretty well." Palmer and his wife were onboard the harbormaster boat after the incident, where the wife said she was able to grab her purse before the boat submerged, a move that allowed the family to make it home since it stored their car keys.
What is more difficult to determine, though, is when they might be back on the river.
"I'm not sure they wanted to go boating in the Merrimack anytime soon," Jansen said.
Copyright ? 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.
By Stephen Tait , Staff Writer
Eagle-Tribune
NEWBURYPORT - The first wake hit the overloaded, 17-foot-long boat and got it rocking back and forth.
The second one filled the vessel with so much water that it started to sink, and its nine passengers "just kind of floated out of the boat," said Don Jansen, Salisbury's assistant harbormaster.
Jansen said that's the way the owners of a Stingray, open-bow boat described how their vessel sank just outside the mouth of the Merrimack River Sunday by waves likely the product of a larger boat's wake.
The boat's nine passengers - four adults and five children - were each plucked from the river by fellow boaters.
Kenneth Palmer of Haverhill, the boat's owner, said his boat was "swamped" by a wave, one he could not say for sure was the wake from a boat or an ocean wave.
"It's not a good feeling," he said. "Being the one driving the boat, I was very nervous about everybody being safe. When it happened, I knew the boat was going to go down."
Palmer will likely be cited for reckless operation of a boat since the limit for his vessel is eight passengers and 1,200 pounds, Jansen said.
"It was just too many people on a small boat," U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Westbrook said. "It was definitely overloaded."
Palmer did not comment about having an extra person aboard the boat. He did say he is an experienced boater - the 17-foot boat being his third - and has often driven through the mouth of the Merrimack.
"It was not the first time going through there," he said.
Officials say the rescue helps highlight two boating hazards in the Merrimack River: the dangers of overloading a small boat and the wakes of large boats. Both circumstances can cause boats to sink and put passengers in danger, officials said.
The wakes in the mouth of the river and just outside it can be huge, caused when fishermen and recreational boaters accelerate their vessels to get to their destinations quickly.
"People tend to not really pay attention to their wake," Jansen said. "They just kind of gun it to try to get where they are going, and they never really look back to see what they are causing with their wake."
Overloaded
Salisbury installs no-wake buoys for travel in the mouth, where the waterway narrows and many fishermen anchor to cast a line hoping to hook a striper or bluefish making its way in or out of the river. Salisbury Harbormaster Ray Pike said the no-wake buoys help to protect the boats anchored there, so wakes don't capsize the vessels.
But Pike said it is not fair to apply that argument to Sunday's accident because the boat was overloaded.
"If you have an overloaded boat, you are more likely to sink," he said. "It is not safe to overload. That explains why boats sink so often."
Jansen said the water was "a little bit choppy at the mouth" about 4:30 p.m. when the boat took on water. But, he said, Palmer's boat is not a big one, and its freeboard - the amount of boat above the waterline - is very short, making it unsafe for the mouth of the Merrimack.
"This boat is not made for that kind of environment and that kind of load," Jansen said.
The boat, a Stingray, is open bow, which means passengers can sit on benches in the front of the boat. It is used mostly for recreational use, not fishing.
The boat sank quickly, Jansen said.
After calling Mayday over the radio, the boat was underwater within two or three minutes, Jansen said. When Jansen arrived at the scene, five minutes after the Mayday call, the boat was underwater, and all the passengers had already been plucked out of the river by other boaters.
"They scooped up the people in the water pretty quickly," Jansen said. "It was one of those times boaters pull together. It really goes to show people are willing to help."
Marian Reilly, a boater on the Merrimack River since the early 1990s, saw Palmer's boat go down in the river. She said "it was like something you hope you never see."
"Within a matter of seconds, everybody but (the driver), just fell out the back of the boat," she said. "It was like you couldn't believe your eyes. There was a lot of screaming; there was a lot of miscellaneous debris floating around in the mouth. The current was taking the people out pretty quickly.
"Everybody in the boat was panicking. This happened very quickly."
Reilly, who was in a 41-foot sailboat, said they did not pick anyone out of the river since more mobile speedboats were helping.
Just before the Stingray sank, she said they saw a boat zoom by the 17-foot vessel and send water over its side. She said it looked like the boat's motor had taken on water and lost power because the boat was not making any headway.
"I yelled to the guy, 'You're taking on water, you're overloaded,'" Reilly said. "Then I just yelled 'life jackets.'"
Reilly said there is a problem with larger boats creating wakes that endanger boats like Palmer's and put people in life-threatening situations.
"A 17-foot boat with that many people, in that situation, you don't fly past one of those boats," she said. "I think it really needs to be brought to the attention of the community to be a little more forgiving in that area and to be more aware of the other boaters.
"It is a chronic problem through there."
The boat's passengers included four adults, two 8-year-olds, two 13-year-olds and a 15-year-old.
Jansen said he is sure the four youngest wore life jackets at the time of the sinking, and he believed the 15-year-old did as well, but he was not sure. By law, anyone 12 years old or younger must wear a life jacket and there must be enough life jackets on board a vessel to accommodate everyone aboard.
"If these kids didn't have any sort of life jacket on at that very moment, this situation could've been very different," Reilly said.
Once the boat took on water, Palmer said the boat sank in about a minute. The first thing he said he did was gather extra life jackets for people to grab while in the river.
"It was very fast," he said. "I just went into getting anything I could to the people on the boat. It wasn't a long time. The way that water was moving, I wanted to make sure everyone was making it to the boats.
"We are glad to be safe," he said. "All the other boaters really rallied for us and got us onto their boats."
Mike Goodridge, the owner of Tow Boat U.S. in Newburyport, salvaged the boat, which bobbed in the river after sinking. He said his company towed the boat, drained it and delivered it back to the owner.
"It was floating, bow up," he said. "The bow was sticking out of the water. It was pretty much vertical."
In the end, Jansen said, the passengers of the boat took the sinking "pretty well." Palmer and his wife were onboard the harbormaster boat after the incident, where the wife said she was able to grab her purse before the boat submerged, a move that allowed the family to make it home since it stored their car keys.
What is more difficult to determine, though, is when they might be back on the river.
"I'm not sure they wanted to go boating in the Merrimack anytime soon," Jansen said.
Copyright ? 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.
6 is a packed house on a boat that size 