1 Killed, 6 Injured in Boating Accidents

One man was killed and six others injured in two unrelated boating accidents involving Orange County men over the weekend.

Authorities were investigating the cause of a fishing accident Saturday that killed William Glose, 33, of Newport Beach and critically injured Shawn Caudillo, 22, also of Newport Beach, when the 19-foot pleasure boat they were aboard struck rocks off Santa Catalina on Saturday evening.

Three other Newport Beach men in the fishing party--David Wilken, 27, Kenneth Morgan, 24, and the boat’s owner, Alfred Gausewitz, 28--suffered minor injuries, said Sgt. Chris Gutierrez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Information Bureau.

The fishing party left Newport Beach about 8 a.m. Saturday for Santa Catalina, Gutierrez said. About 6 p.m., the boat started to return but for unknown reasons struck rocks at Lovers’ Cove off the island, he said.

Glose was killed on impact with the rocks, Gutierrez said.

‘Crashed on the Rocks’

The boat remained afloat, he said. “They crashed on the rocks (and then) they caught somebody’s attention and were taken to the local hospital,” he said.

The injured men were first taken to a hospital in Avalon on the island. Wilken, Morgan and Gausewitz were treated and released, but Caudillo was transferred to St. Mary’s Hospital in Long Beach, where he was in critical condition, Gutierrez said.

The incident is being investigated by homicide detectives because it involved a death, Gutierrez said.

But, he added, “we’re treating it as a boating accident until we can determine otherwise, pending further investigation.”

Some of the men had been drinking, but Gutierrez said it was a “normal social type of drinking.”

“Alcohol is not being listed as a cause of the accident,” he said.

Farther north, park rangers maneuvered a small boat between rocks early Sunday to rescue a Fountain Valley man and his friend who clung to a cliff wall for 8 hours after their kayak smashed against Arch Rock and sank near Anacapa Island off Ventura County.

Rescuers found the men on the eastern tip of the island about 12:15 a.m., Channel Islands National Park Ranger Steve James said.

The Coast Guard and park rangers circled the island in a helicopter and boats after friends reported that Thomas Buckley, 30, of Fountain Valley and John Zapinski, 30, of Long Beach had failed to return to their island campsite, Coast Guard Petty Officer Clifford Hohl said.

Authorities used spotlights and searched for several hours without finding any sign of the missing men. Rescuers were minutes away from leaving when rangers spotted wreckage from the 17-foot canvas kayak inside Arch Rock--a picturesque span made famous in postcards and nature photographs.

“It was pitch black. You could hear them, but you couldn’t see them. It was just by the grace of God that it was calm enough for us to get back in,” James said.

Rescuers helped Buckley and Zapinski climb down a 10-foot cliff that was covered with “razor-sharp” barnacles and mussels, James said. Both suffered cuts and mild hypothermia. They were treated at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and released, officials said.