At 10:21 am on Aug. 15, 2012 the US Coast Guard received a distress call on VHF 16 from the 26' recreational fishing vessel Elixir Vitae.  The vessel was taking on water and was sinking. USCG dispatched a 45' rescue vessel from Ft Pierce with a 40 min. ETA.  Martin County sent a helicopter and patrol boat from St Lucie Inlet and a FWC 27' patrol boat was launched from Ft Pierce.  A Seatow vessel was also en route.  The position was approx. 25 NM offshore east of Nettles Island.  Communications was lost with the vessel indicating the vessel had possibly sank.  A short time later a flare was spotted about 6NM north of the last reported location.  The USCG arrived at the scene following the drift for about 20 min. when they located the debris field and the 3 survivors in the water with life jackets. The boat sank in approx. 1200' of water.  They were brought back to Station Ft Pierce.  The FWC vessel I was on retuned to base after getting within about 5 miles of the location when the 3 men were picked up. See attached operator statement for detailed account of events leading up to and including the sinking.

According to the owners witness statement, the boat had just come back from dealer. He advised that his fish finder was not working properly and asked the dealer and electronics rep. to look at it. The dealer told him they might need to relocate transducer to fix the problem.  He also advised that the dealer rep test drove the boat but told him that he had not had time to look at the thru hull transducer prior to returning it to the owner.  One of the passengers had just used the head about fifteen minutes prior to the incident and stated that he could not get the toilet to flush.  He also tried manually to no avail.  I asked if the live well was being used at the time of the incident and was told they were using frozen bait and weren't circulating water for the live well.  Without being able to look at the vessel it is not possible to determine what caused it to sink.

HUTCHINSON ISLAND SOUTH       