Passengers Evacuated After Cruise Ship Runs Aground Off Cape Cod

A 617-foot cruise ship ran aground two miles off Cape Cod in dense fog Sunday morning, forcing the evacuation of about 1,100 vacationing passengers and crew, the Coast Guard said.

The Bermuda Star, bound for Provincetown, Mass., from New York City, ran aground in a shallow, rocky area about 8:30 a.m. as the vessel approached the Cape Cod Canal at the beginning of the peninsula, Coast Guard spokesman Steve Aitkins said.

None of the 687 passengers or 380 crew members aboard were hurt, Aitkins said. He said the ship took on water for about 90 minutes, but the flooding was controlled.

“It’s unusual. You just don’t have that many professional cruise liners going around Buzzard’s Bay,” said Gregg Peterson, Coast Guard senior quartermaster at Woods Hole. “They usually don’t get that far out of the channel. I don’t know what they were doing out there.”

Three Coast Guard cutters were sent to assist the Panama-flag ship, and divers tried to assess damage to the hull. Fuel containment booms were set up around the vessel, and a spill of between 500 to 1,000 gallons of fuel was under control by midday.

The Coast Guard initially denied the captain’s request that passengers be evacuated from the vessel and planned to try to dislodge the ship from the ocean floor at high tide. When that effort failed, several ferries were dispatched to the ship to remove passengers to shore.

The ship’s owner, Bermuda Star Lines of Teaneck, N.J., arranged hotel accommodations or bus transportation home for the stranded passengers.

When the ship struck bottom, it apparently was waiting for fog to clear so that it could turn into the Cape Cod Canal, a waterway separating the hook-shaped cape from the mainland.