| Release #: M10-11 |
| Release date: October 28, 2003 |
| Contact: Petty Officer Crystal Norman |
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Coast Guard assist Georgia fishing crew **Video available** |
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla., -- The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tarpon, Station Tybee, Ga., and a helicopter rescue crew from Air Station Savannah, Ga., responded to a Mayday call 1.5 miles east from Wassaw Sound, Ga., today from the Langs Pride, a 75-foot shrimping vessel, after it began taking on water from a leaking shaft packing. Jimmy Lewis Pinkney Jr., 51, and Ronald Washington, 54, both Georgia residents, notified Coast Guard rescue coordinators at Group Charleston, S.C., 11:55 a.m. via channel 16 using a VHF radio as well as activated the ship's emergency positioning indicator radio beacon. Rescue coordinators were able to provide dewatering devices to the fishermen by diverting the Coast Guard Cutter Tarpon and launching rescue crews from Air Station Savannah and Station Tybee. The compartment on the Langs Pride was successful dewatered and the crew was able to make repairs while underway. The commercial shrimping crew continued their voyage and remains at sea. "The bilge alarm sounded just as the crewmen were lowering the shrimp nets on deck, said Master Chief Petty Officer Phillip Wolf, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Tarpon. "Without this alarm they probably would not have discovered the flooding in time to save their ship." The Coast Guard Cutter Tarpon in an 87-foot patrol boat homeported in Tybee, Ga.
he U.S. Coast Guard is a military, maritime, multi-mission service within the |
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