More details have emerged about the Hy-Line Cruises ferry collision in foggy conditions last Friday night, including the damage done to several sailboats in the mooring field off Brant Point after the ferry’s initial collision with a 44-foot Hinckley in the channel.
Brian Simmons’ 26-foot Alerion “First Tracks” was discovered Saturday morning with its mast snapped. Meanwhile, Marc Feigen’s 1947 English-built Dragon “Elska” was hit and dragged by the Hy-Line ferry, which causing “significant” damage. Feigen’s 29-foot sailboat was towed to Cape Cod for repairs.
Both Simmons and Feigen said that Hy-Line Cruises Vice President Murray Scudder had reached out to them to apologize and expressed, as Simmons reiterated, that the company would “make it right.”
It was unclear why the ferry navigated through the mooring field off Brant Point after the initial collision, but Scudder said that the captain of the Grey Lady IV became “disoriented” and acknowledged that several boats had been damaged.
Meanwhile, the owner of the Razor Bill, the Hinckley powerboat that was involved in the first collision with the Hy-Line Cruises ferry, has not been identified. The whereabouts of the boat itself remain unknown, and Harbormaster Sheila Lucey said she has still not seen the boat around island waters since the collision.
Joseph Farrell, the owner of Resolve Marine, said he was on the water with his daughter at the time of the incident and heard about the collision over marine radio and quickly noticed the Razor Bill in the channel.
“I went up to them, there was maybe three people aboard, they had their life jackets on, but he’s drifting right by the No. 5 marker in the middle of the channel,” said Farrell, who described the Razor Bill as a lighter-colored Hinckley. “The next ferry is coming out, the Steamship, and I told him ‘we gotta get you out of the way.’ I said ‘captain, you’re about to bump into the green buoy’ and he just ignored me. He drifts into the buoy, slides off that, and then they were just putzing around.”
Farrell said he made sure to follow the Razor Bill back to the Children’s Beach pier where the Coast Guard instructed him to tie up. The investigation continues.
