Officials probing Hyannis ferry crash that injured 15 people
Investigators probing the violent crash of a high-speed ferry that was completing its final crossing from Nantucket to Cape Cod Friday say the vessel was going 36 mph when it careened into a granite jetty at the entrance to Hyannis Harbor and left 15 passengers injured, authorities said yesterday.
The catamaran’s captain and pilot are seasoned mariners with a combined 60 years’ experience sailing for the Steamship Authority, general manager Wayne Lamson said. Both tested negative for alcohol immediately after the grounding and remain on active duty, he said. Drug testing results could be known as soon as today.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Commander Matt Baker described both officers as “completely cooperative.” He said the people requiring medical attention suffered “impact injuries similar to an auto accident,” none of which were lifethreatening. Baker declined to comment on whether the 154-foot catamaran Iyanough was off-course, but told the Herald investigators are downloading data from its GPS system to map its route.
The Iyanough was carrying 48 passengers, six crew members and three foodservice workers.
Lamson said damage to the boat included a sizeable gash through which light could be seen inside the hull. The boat, in service since 2007, was headed to a Fairhaven shipyard yesterday for repairs under its own power. He said the 4-foot seas the Iyanough was navigating, while choppy, were roughly half the wave size that might otherwise suspend service for the one-hour, 26-mile trip.
Acting Hyannis fire Chief Dean Melanson said the breakwater is made of granite boulders and protrudes between 2 and 8 feet out of the water, depending on the tide.
Fashion designer Elizabeth Callahan of Osterville was returning home from treating her boyfriend, Peter Doyle, to dinner on rain-soaked Nantucket for his 68th birthday when disaster struck, stranding the Iyanough on the rocks, bow up. The couple had just kicked off their shoes to relax and were seated opposite each other at a table bolted to the floor that gave them something to grab onto. “Thank God for that table,” Callahan said.
“We started to close our eyes and there was a crash. I thought in the beginning it was a big wave crashing onto the bow of the boat, but it was louder.”
Her frantic thoughts, she said, immediately went to the film “Titanic.”
“I knew we were not moving, not going anywhere,” she said. “I didn’t hear people screaming. Everyone was looking at each other. We were all in shock.”
Callahan said one crew member was thrown down a staircase at the moment of impact. A man in a tour group “took a hit” and was bleeding from his head. She saw two people on stretchers. At about 2 a.m., she and Doyle were airlifted by basket to the last two available seats on a helicopter and flown ashore.