U.S. Coast Guard airlifts seven from adrift tugboat near Ocean City

File photo July 2015

OCEAN CITY, Md. – Seven people were airlifted from a tugboat about 30 miles offshore from Ocean City early Saturday morning.

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) says the call came in around 3:30 a.m. A crew member aboard the tug Legacy alerted watch standers that a 1,000 foot towing line was entangled in their starboard propeller. The crew member reported that the Legacy was inoperable, and the crew was getting ready to abandon ship. The Legacy was towing a 290-foot barge from New Jersey to Guyana.

A 154-foot Coast Guard Cutter Lawson, based out of Cape May, N.J., was close enough to divert its course to the incident. However, USCG says foul weather prevented the cutter’s crew from getting close enough to the Legacy to help.

Cutter Lawson stayed on scene while a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew was dispatched from Coast Guard Air Station in Atlantic City, N.J. An MH-60 Jayhawk crew was also dispatched from Coast Guard Air Station in Elizabeth City, N.C. USCG says seven people were safely hoisted from the Legacy. They were taken to Ocean City Municipal Airport with no reported injuries.

With the help of the Legacy’s emergency position indicating radio beacon, and a USCG self-locating data marker buoy, watch standers will track the tug and barge until it can be commercially salvaged.