The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a whale-watching tour boat on Wednesday after the vessel experienced a mechanical malfunction, leaving it stranded with 49 passengers at the mouth of Yaquina Bay in Newport.
The 62-foot Discovery sent out a mayday call around 12:45 p.m. after the boat started producing smoke and lost power, officials said.
The Coast Guard station at Yaquina Bay picked up the call and immediately sent out two boats, Coast Guard spokesperson Steve Strohmaier told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
The rescue boats arrived within 8 minutes and quickly discovered they wouldn’t have to evacuate passengers because the boat wasn’t at risk of catching fire or in imminent danger of sinking, Strohmaier said.
But without propulsion, the Discovery was stranded — and could end up being pushed into one of the jetties by the waves and current, he said.
So Coast Guard responders secured the stranded vessel to the side of one of the rescue boats and towed it to shore, mooring the boat back at its dock by 1:30 p.m., officials said.
Nobody was reported injured in the incident, and Strohmaier said that firefighters from the Newport Fire Department inspected the boat and concluded it wasn’t a fire hazard. Strohmaier said he didn’t know if a cause for the malfunction had been identified.
Marine Discovery Tours, the company that operates the Discovery, did not immediately respond to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s request for comment.
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