Often times you hear greatness is not found in the fleet. Today this was not the case. Luckily for a few fishermen out searching for tuna this morning the weekend crowds that congregate at Stellwagon Bank became a lifesaver. After a long steam aboard the Mac Son from Weymouth down to the SW corner of the Bank in less then ideal conditions we got lines in the water around 7:15. After a couple hours of hearing folks hooked up on the radio and not doing much ourselves I see a man standing on the bow of a center console waving his arms back and forth. It was tough to tell what was going on as the boat was a half mile away or so but the wave certainly didn't seem like a friendly Saturday morning hello. It was more likely what seemed to be a sign of distress. I alerted the Capt, and we headed over in the direction of the boat. Sure enough as we got close we could see this 31' Fountain center console with three men aboard was sitting low in the water. One man had a 5 gallon bucket and was trying to keep up with the incoming water but it was no use. I instructed the men to don life preservers as none of them had them on at this point. Soon enough green water was crashing over their transom, the outboard mercury engines were submerged, and the chinese fire drill aboard the Mac Son was well under way. Lines were in and riggers were up and we were ready to transfer the three persons aboard the CC to our boat. At this point a second boat had arrived on the scene, I believe the name of it was the "Mick-Mac." They hailed us and offered to make the first attempt as they had more passengers aboard to help with the transfer effort. Without hesitation the "Mick Mac" safely offloaded the soon to be water bound fisherman and we watched as seconds later the 31' Fountain went nose up in the chilly waters off Cape Cod. Kudos to the "Mick Mac" and the rest of the fleet for a quick response and an amazing effort which will let these three guys live to fish another day.
If I can figure out how to upload a video I have the majority of this on film as well.
Wow. Really humbling reading this and knowing it could happen to any one of us. Doesn't have to be equipment failure, could just be an unseen object floating in the water.
Good job getting on scene quickly. Sad to see something like this happen.
Hotreels, I was able to read that before it was edited... I appreciate the reply.. Before any presumptions are made or a bad name is given to the boat I was aboard i would love to clear things up with whomever wrote that to you. I will tell you one thing, we made every effort to get ourselves in a position and get those men off that boat. I'm sure this is all new to whomever wrote that, and hopefully with time they'll be appreciative that we were in the area. If your buddy has any hard feelings about any of the events which occured today I would not mind speaking with him to clear things up. Feel free to PM me if you need any contact info.
A Sea Tow boat came out around 2pm and within 5 minutes the boat was up and floating. All they did was put a rope to the bow cleat and started towing pop goes the boat and off they went. The guy is going to get his boat back too how lucky is that?
Greg, you were right, we should have thrown a line on it.
To All,
My buddy/mate Steve told me about this site, says it has a bunch of good guys and some good info. My name is Mac and I like to fish.
Some info I can add to the site--Steve is a fish magnet, beyond competent on a boat, and as fine a guy as one could hope to meet. He put a quick woopin on a 65" fish this a.m.
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