I’m on a 260 foot, 5,000 ton hydraulic fracturing vessel that serves oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. On Oct 23 I overheard a distress call on Channel 16 while we were underway off the coast of Louisiana. I diverted my ship’s course and floored it to the boats location. Along the way I heard them say they were abandoning ship. I swung my ship around downwind of the vessel, had our rescue boat lowered and had them tow the 5 crew of the fishing boat to a smaller boat that arrived on scene after we did. All 5 crew are safely aboard the other vessel and enroute to New Orleans.
They were fighting a fish and weren’t paying attention to where they were going. Smacked right into a small oil platform about 9 miles out tearing a hole in the port bow. The Viking 65 went down in an hour. I heard their distress call at 11:05 am and by noon they were rescued by us onto another vessel and their boat was almost gone.
With all the incidents of boats sinking and people being lost I figured I’d send in a more uplifting moment. I was honored to have been able to assist in the rescue of 5 people using my ship. – Anarchist Jesse.
