Coast Guard helps tanker in distress

ROCKLAND – Three Coast Guard boat crews and two air crews responded to a report of a tanker vessel that was taking on water about 35 miles off the coast of Rockland and 20 miles southwest of Matinicus.

The three-person crew aboard the 72-foot island tanker William McLoon radioed Coast Guard Sector Northern New England around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday, reporting flooding in the engine room.

“There was about three feet of water in the engine room, and four feet on deck, and [the crew] didn’t know where it was coming from,” Chief Warrant Officer Curtis Barthel of the Rockland station said Wednesday. “We launched lifeboats from here and from our station in Boothbay Harbor.”

At 9:45 p.m., a Falcon jet aircrew and a Jayhawk helicopter aircrew from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod went to the scene.

The Coast Guard cutter Flyingfish, an 87-foot patrol boat from Boston, was also diverted to the scene.

The helicopter rescue crew and the boat crew from Station Boothbay Harbor arrived around 10:35 p.m. and dropped a water pump to the ship’s crew.

Rescue crews aided efforts to pump water from the vessel throughout the night. The three crew members of the McLoon stayed aboard as well.

“Since the crew had a marine radio aboard the vessel, they were able to radio for help when they began taking on water,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean Killian, a communications watchstander at Sector Northern New England in South Portland.

Lt. Lisa Tinker of the communications office at the Coast Guard station in South Portland said Wednesday the Flyingfish towed the McLoon to Gowan Marine in Portland, where inspectors examined the ship.

The McLoon was headed for Florida when it began taking on water, Tinker said.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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