On April 6,2013, approximately 1100pm,  Galveston Police Department dispatcher reported a 45FT sailing vessel with 2 people on board disabled and pushed up against the Galveston jetties.  Galveston PD dispatcher contacted Galveston Coast Guard to inform them of the situation and requested assistance. Coast Guard vessel 45618 arrived on scene and was not able to respond due to water depth.  Galveston PD, who was also on the scene,  was also not able to make contact with the vessel due to water depth.  

The owner/operator of the vessel  made contact with SEA TOW and requested assistance.  Since the Coast Guard and Galveston PD were unable to respond SEA TOW agreed to assist.  The vessel began taking on water but was not actually capsizing due to being hard aground on the jetties.  The operator of the vessel  threw an orange life raft over the side of the vessel and was intending on getting into the life raft.  The Coast Guard instructed the operator to stay on the deck of his vessel because of the high probability of being pushed against the jetties in the life raft.  SEA TOW arrived on scene and evacuated two people off of the vessel and transferred them to Galveston PD.  Galveston PD transferred the personnel to the Galveston Yacht Basin and arranged for transportation to a hotel.  SEA TOW did not know if they will be able to salvage the vessel because it had approximately 3-4FT of water inside.  Coast Guard was contacted by Warden on  4-11-2013.  Coast Guard informed Warden he went back to the area were the vessel was last seen, but the vessel was completely under water. It should be noted, this agency was not notified about this accident until five days after the accident occurred. All of this information in this report was gather by this officer by contacting those involved in this accident, to include, the Coast Guard, Sea Tow, the operator, and passenger of the vessel.
Galveston