Captain of grounded schooner, Coast Guard act fast to stem crisis

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EASTPORT – An evening sail turned into a scary adventure for a group of North Carolina youth when the 84-foot schooner Sylvina W. Beal they were aboard went aground in Canadian waters nearby.

The 41 passengers were all from Youth Works, of Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., and were in Calais doing volunteer work for the city and area residents.

The youths, together with Capt. Butch Harris and two crewmen, left the Eastport breakwater around 6 p.m. Monday.

The night air was cool, a haze had settled in around the vessel. The kids were excited about the possibility of seeing whales or porpoises, according to their accounts. The ship moved out past the breakwater and headed toward Indian Island, which is roughly one nautical mile northeast of Eastport. The haze turned into fog and rolled in fast, cutting the visibility down to almost nothing.

The vessel is rigged with safety equipment, including instruments that help a captain pilot a vessel through dense fog.

“It was really cold out there,” Max Johnson, 14, of North Carolina said Tuesday. “You couldn’t see 50 feet ahead of us.”

Then something went wrong.

“All of a sudden the captain started to turn the boat and we just figured they were just turning the boat around to take us back in. Then it completely stopped moving,” Karl Wagner, 16, said.

The boat was aground.

Johnson said the captain made several attempts to dislodge the vessel.

“We tried a bunch of different things. He [even] went out with the dinghy,” Johnson said. But the boat was stuck.

“We were going to wait for the tide,” Wagner added. “But when we found out [the boat was starting to list] we had to call the Coast Guard,” he said. “The captain said the whole thing would capsize if we did not evacuate the boat.”

The distress call came in around 6:30 p.m. Monday to Coast Guard Station Eastport, U.S. Coast Guard Boatswain First Class Jana Miller said Tuesday.

The Coast Guard’s 41-foot utility boat was dispatched immediately to Graveyard Point on Indian Island, where the schooner was aground.

“They were requesting that passengers be removed from the vessel since they went aground,” U.S. Coast Guard Boatswain Mate Second Class Cameron McCabe added.

“My one crewman noticed the white hull appear out of the fog. As we got closer, we began to see passengers on board,” McCabe said.

The utility boat made its way in the fog to within speaking distance of the crew.

“They said [the schooner] was starting to lay over and starting to get unstable because the tide was receding. No sooner did we get that communicated then it took a heavy roll to starboard, throwing some of the passengers around. A lot of screaming was going on, confusion,” McCabe said.

The Coast Guard crew reacted quickly and moved the utility boat alongside the schooner. They were in about 15 feet of water.

McCabe had a decision to make – the utility boat is licensed for 20 passengers, but there were 41 passengers aboard the schooner.

“But they were young kids, so doing some quick math in my head – and it is life and property first – I made the decision to put all 41 people right on the boat and get them off the vessel because it wasn’t stable anymore,” he said.

Hearing of the struggles of the Sylvina W. Beal, the fishing vessel High Maintenance joined the effort, standing by while the Coast Guard took the passengers to shore.

In the meantime, Harris and the crew had taken their skiff and dropped an anchor out in the water.

“So when it did refloat it would be anchored and secured and not go farther aground,” McCabe said.

Dropping off the passengers on the breakwater, the Coast Guard crew returned to the still-listing Sylvina W. Beal and picked up the captain and crew, who were then taken to Eastport for a routine drug and alcohol test administered by the Eastport Police Department.

The test completed, the Coast Guard and Sylvina W. Beal crew returned to the schooner where the High Maintenance was still waiting and watching. The lobster boat Soldier Boy had joined it. Both vessels are out of Eastport.

At this point, it was four hours since the vessel had gone aground.

“They had one line rigged from the fishing vessel High Maintenance’s bow, through the center main mast on the sailing vessel just to add some stability when it started to re-right,” McCabe said.

Soon the tide came up and the Sylvina W. Beal began to float on its own.

But there were more problems.

The schooner had taken on water. “We did find about 1,000 gallons of water in one of the center compartments,” McCabe said.

The Coast Guard lent the captain one of its pumps but more were needed, and the High Maintenance ferried more pumps to the schooner.

Once the water was pumped out, the schooner began to “stand up straight,” McCabe said.

The Coast Guard towed the schooner to the pier at the Boat School on Deep Cove in Eastport, where it remains.

Capt. Harris at Deep Cove on Tuesday declined to talk about the incident because he said it was under investigation by the Coast Guard.

There was a hole in the schooner’s side about the size of two fists.

“It’s not a big deal,” Harris said of the hole. He said he expects to have the Sylvina W. Beal back at work in a few days.

City Manager George “Bud” Finch said he was pleased the situation had been handled so effectively and efficiently.

“Butch [Harris] is well-known locally as a very capable and responsible captain and businessman,” the city manager said. “It is without a doubt his years of experience with boats on the bay that contributed to his quick actions, thus greatly reducing any potential severity of the incident.”

Finch also had high praise for the crew at Coast Guard Station Eastport.

“I am completely impressed with the actions of all,” he said.

Finch said he looked forward to his next trip on the Sylvina W. Beal.

Eastport Police Chief Matt Vinson said Tuesday night that the drug and alcohol test administered to the schooner’s crew was negative.

“They were all straight zeros. There was no alcohol in their systems,” Vinson said.

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