NEWBURYPORT — Three boaters on a maiden voyage aboard their 17-foot Cruiser Craft learned firsthand yesterday afternoon about the perils of the mouth of the Merrimack River when their boat was overcome by waves and capsized, setting them adrift and clinging to their floating belongings.
The trio hailing from Southbridge had not been on the water long, according to the boat owner Gary Faria, 35, when their craft was overcome at around 4:30 p.m. by waves rolling just inside the mouth — an area known for the potential of some of the most dangerous wave activity on the northeast coast.
Despite attempts by all three to pump the water out faster than it was coming in, said Faria, those efforts were no match for the swiftly moving current and incoming tide. The men spent 10 minutes in the water, clinging to floating debris before Captain Chris Charos and crewmen Jay Ritter and Gabe Marks from the Captain's Lady III caught sight of them on their return from an 8-hour fishing trip out at sea.
"We were coming back for the day and then noticed all the people in the water with debris floating around them," said Joe Marciello of Worcester, a passenger aboard the Captain's Lady at the time of the rescue. "There were just three guys bobbing around out there. They were pretty lucky, I think. They looked like they were a little confused."
It hadn't been one of the most memorable fishing trips for Marciello in terms of fish count, returning with just a few keepers but not as many as he typically reels in on his trips aboard the Captain's Lady. But when he caught sight of the three men struggling to stay afloat amid the debris from their capsized boat, the unexpected turn of events that followed was something he said he wouldn't soon forget. One minute he and other passengers were contemplating the shoreline and afternoon sun, and the next he and others aboard the boat — captain and passengers alike — were putting a rescue plan into action.
Ropes from the fishing boat were thrown to the three boaters, according to Marciello, and the three were soon brought alongside the boat and hauled up via ropes around their midsections to the deck by the crew and passengers.
"Everybody did what they could," he said.
Warmer than normal water temperatures of 65 degrees and an incoming tide that thankfully pushed the three away from the worst of the breakers helped ensure a safe ending for the three boaters. They were lucky to have been rescued by a passing boat, according to Newburyport Harbormaster Paul Grossi-Hogg. As it was, one member of the boating party was suffering the effects of the chilly ocean water when he was brought aboard the fishing vessel, according to Marciello.
"One was really cold and they had to warm him in the engine room," said Marciello, who was a bit shaken himself by the afternoon events.
"It was definitely an experience, I'll tell you that," said Marciello. "One you don't forget. I never saw the boat. I guess it must have sunk."
After being checked out by AMS ambulance crew at the scene, all three men left the Captain's Lady on their own without assistance, with at least one downplaying the dangerousness of their situation by suggesting he was thinking about going back into the water for a swim.
"This is the first time with our own boat," said Faria of their trip, who said he had spent time fishing aboard the Captain's Lady in the past and spent days on the nearby beach, but had never attempted the river on his own before.
The craft he and his friends took out was given to him for free by a friend, he said.
Grossi-Hogg said given the kind of boat Faria was captaining, an aluminum tracker or bass boat as it's known, the three didn't have much of a chance given the nature of the river and current. That kind of boat, he said, is made for freshwater boating.
"It's more a freshwater style boat and it didn't have much flotation to it, so it probably went right down to the bottom," said Grossi-Hogg. "That's why they got swamped."
Grossi-Hogg dispatched two boats to the scene to aid in the rescue effort, and once there set about collecting pieces of debris river to ensure other boaters didn't run into the items and end up in a similarly dangerous situation. He picked up the boat's gas tank while the Coast Guard tended to the three aboard the Captain's Lady.
All in all, he said, the event serves as yet another reminder for boaters to educate themselves on the dangers of the river before setting out.
"It wasn't terribly rough out there like it usually gets," he said. "They definitely shouldn't have been out there in that type of boat. They were lucky that there was someone there to pick them right up."
Bystander Bill Ritter, who was down at the docks to pick up his son, a first mate aboard the Captain's Lady, watched the scene with the eye of someone who knows how lucky the three were.
"That's where my Dad died," he said, looking out at the pass.
It was Easter Sunday 1947, he said, when his father and two friends were forging through the pass with a newly purchased 27-foot boat they had ridden up from Gloucester. The boat's broken remains came ashore some time later on Plum Island.
"They were all three reported lost at sea," he said.
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