High Tide, Tugs Free Liner From Offshore Shoal

A high tide and six tugboats helped free a 600-foot luxury liner and more than 900 passengers Sunday night from a sandy shoal near Nantucket Island where they had been stuck for nearly 24 hours.

The liner was moved to deeper water to be inspected for damage, Coast Guard Petty Officer Zach Zubricki said.

The Royal Majesty got stuck 10 miles east of Nantucket late Saturday while returning from Bermuda to Boston with 959 passengers and a crew of more than 500.

Strong currents, rain and high seas had delayed efforts to evacuate passengers onto ferries while the ship was stuck. The passengers and crew were to remain on the ship until at least Monday morning.

No one was hurt or in danger, and the ship’s hull was not ruptured, said the Coast Guard and the ship’s owner, Majesty Cruise Line.

Lorrie Krebs and her mother, Grace, were the only passengers taken off the ship. Lorrie Krebs, 28, who underwent a double-lung transplant three years ago, was removed as a precaution because she was running low on anti-rejection medicine.

The women later said the other passengers were calm.

The Coast Guard was investigating how the ship ran aground.

“Sometimes these [shoals] develop after charts are plotted out,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Phyllis Kay.

The ship ran aground five years to the day after another cruise ship, the Bermuda Star, foundered on rocks in the same area. The Queen Elizabeth 2 damaged its hull on a rocky shoal nearby in 1992.

The Royal Majesty had been scheduled to dock in Boston at 8 a.m. Sunday after a one-week cruise.