Cargo Ship Sinks in Atlantic; Life Raft Spotted

A 250-foot cargo ship en route from Bermuda to New York with 11 crewmen aboard capsized and sank in stormy seas off the Atlantic coast Wednesday night, the Coast Guard said.

After searching for several hours, a Coast Guard C-130 plane spotted a life raft with an unknown number of survivors and a helicopter was dispatched to try to pick them up, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Kenneth Arbogast.

“There were people on the raft waving flashlights, but we don’t know how many,” he said.

It was believed the crew members piled into life rafts minutes before the vessel capsized.

Makes Emergency Call

The captain of the ship Lloyd Bermuda made an emergency call shortly before the vessel sank about 7:15 p.m. EST, saying winds were 60 knots and waves were 25 feet high in the area, about 190 miles south of Nantucket Island, Mass., said Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Jonathan Trumble.

“The length of the call was less than five minutes and the captain said he was abandoning ship,” Trumble said. “At the time they were abandoning ship, there was no word of deaths or injuries.”

Two helicopters, a jet from the Coast Guard air station on Cape Cod and the C-130 aircraft from Elizabeth City, N.C., arrived about 10:20 p.m. and immediately began the search. But the helicopters and the jet ran low on fuel after about 90 minutes and returned to Cape Cod, Trumble said.

The Coast Guard cutter Tamaroa, on patrol off Cape Cod, and two merchant ships already in the area were also dispatched to help search for the crew, he said.

The merchant vessels had hoped to reach the scene shortly after midnight, but Trumble said, “The weather was so bad they were forced to slow down.”

Cargo Shifted

“Everything is complicating the search at this point,” Arbogast said.

According to the radio messages from the ship, cargo aboard the Cypriot-registered container vessel shifted in the storm, Arbogast said.

“The captain said the cargo had shifted and said it was capsizing. The weight of the ship had caused it to go over on its side,” he said.

Arbogast said it was not immediately known what cargo the ship was carrying.