Quick Repairs Save Tugboat From Sinking

A tugboat began taking on water in the Catalina Channel several miles off San Pedro on Sunday, but lifeguard divers and crewmen managed to repair the 100-foot vessel and kept it afloat.

The six crewmen aboard the Pelican Magic were heading toward a berth Sunday night at the Southwest Marine Shipyard on Terminal Island, moving under their own power, said county lifeguard Lt. Dave Story.

Story said a distress call from the Florida-registered boat came at 4:05 p.m.

By 5:30 p.m. it was feared the vessel would be lost, with water already coming over the deck.

“The vessel was definitely in jeopardy of sinking,” Story said.

But the crew, he added, was relatively safe, with life preservers and life rafts on board. The crew also had the almost immediate assistance of a Coast Guard helicopter, a Coast Guard cutter and six lifeguard craft.

Crew members originally thought the Pelican Magic had struck something, bending the propeller shaft, but Story said it appeared that the propeller shaft had simply malfunctioned, sending its underwater fittings jutting through the deck.

Story said the boat’s intended destination was the Southwestern Marine commercial berth.

He said that while divers surveyed the damage, the helicopter dropped water pumps to the crew, as well as plugs and wax molds to patch the holes.

“The crew actively took part in their rescue,” Story said.