Whoops! Tall ship aground

by Boston Globe/Sail-World Cruising on 7 Aug 2009 Whoops! That degree of heel and no sails?

A tall ship devoted to teaching girls to sail very embarrassingly ran aground on rocks this week near Woods Hole in Massachusetts USA, and the Coast Guard was called to take most of the crew off the vessel.

The 118-foot Unicorn, with 16 female crew, became lodged on the rocks about 400 yards off Nonamesset Island, the most easterly of the Elizabeth Islands. The ship’s crew radioed the Coast Guard at 10:30 a.m. that they needed assistance, officials said.

A 41-foot Coast Guard boat from the Woods Hole station arrived minutes later and began removing people from the ship, which was en route from Boston to Newport.

Nine teenagers and an adult chaperone were taken to Woods Hole and interviewed by an investigator, and six crew members stayed on board to assist the Coast Guard.

Petty Officer Connie Terrell said that the boat was tugged off the rocks shortly after 1:30 p.m, and that the crew reboarded. No injuries were reported, and the cause of the grounding was under investigation.

The area is renowned for its tricky tidal currents and complicated buoyage, and there have been many incidents recorded in the same spot.

The tall ship was being taken to Vineyard Haven to be checked for damage, Coast Guard officials said.

'Another investigator was sent to the Unicorn, to see if there was any damage and if it is still seaworthy,’’ Petty Officer Connie Terrell said.

The Unicorn was built in 1947 and is part of the Sisters Under Sail program. Dawn Santamaria, the Unicorn’s owner and the founder of the program, said she was aboard the ship as it cut between Woods Hole and Nonamesset Island.

'We were just on the edge of the channel, and we hit some rocks,’’ Santamaria said.