GLOUCESTER — While it may have been the three-hour tour described in the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song, it was a happier ending for 34 passengers touring the seas around Cape Ann.
The Coast Guard said the captain of the 37-foot Cape Ann Harbor Cruise boat King Eider began issuing mayday calls shortly after 4:30 p.m. Saturday after the vessel began taking on water at the rate of 5 gallons per minute. The boat was in the area of Brace Cove, outside of Gloucester Harbor.
“I heard the mayday call for a boat with 34 passengers and I thought, ‘This ain’t good,’” said Capt. Kevin Twombly of the Lisa & Jake, based out of the Cape Ann’s Marina Resort. Twombly was returning from a chartered trip fishing for haddock and cod with a “couple of folks” and was coming around the Back Shore when he heard the call.
“I just went in there, and when I saw what the situation was, I just hooked ’em up,” he said.