Capsized boat ‘over capacity’

Cops: 13 on board

The doomed boat that capsized in the Hudson River, killing two, was crammed with at least 13 people on board even though the vessel was only large enough to hold 12 at most, The Post has learned.

The 24-foot-long Yamaha AR240, named Stimulus Money, that Lindelia Vasquez, 50, chartered to take her relatives on a tour of the New York Harbor on Tuesday afternoon had a maximum capacity of 12, or about 2,698 pounds, according to specs listed on Hardcore Marine.

Hours after the initial incident, which killed Vasquez and her 7-year-old relative Julian Vasquez, police officials said at a press conference just 12 people were on board the vessel. But late Wednesday, cops revealed there were at least 13 on board, meaning it was overloaded.

While police sources said there are “no immediate signs of criminality” in the tragedy, flouting a vessel’s capacity restrictions could land the charter company, the boat’s owner or operator in hot water, attorney and maritime safety advocate Jeffrey Goodman told The Post.

“There are responsibilities that exist for the charter company, for the vessel owner and the operator. Who did what wrong here, I can’t say,” said Goodman, a partner attorney with Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky who has represented victims from a host of boating tragedies, including the 2012 sinking of a pleasure craft on Oyster Bay that killed three kids.

“A lot of times you’ll get boat operators who’ll take the viewpoint, ‘It’s a bunch of little kids so it doesn’t matter,’ which is completely inconsistent with regulations . . . Children versus adults does not change the safety threshold when it comes to overloading.”

It’s not immediately clear how many children were on board the Stimulus Money, but there was at least one.

The Post has been unable to reach the boat’s owner, who was traveling behind the vessel on a jet ski at the time of the tragedy.