Piscataqua Tug Pinned Under Bridge – Incident Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWCP2tGLGTU

A small disaster was recently avoided when the Seaward Marine towboat Miss Stacy got swept by the Piscataqua River current and drifted into the Memorial Bridge.

According to Seacost Online there were two people aboard the vessel named Miss Stacy when it began listing to its port side at about 2 p.m. Owned by Seaward Marine Corp. of Virginia, the boat was moving a barge beneath the bridge, which was being dismantled, when it got turned around by the current and became lodged underneath the span. Workers on the tugboat were rescued by people on another vessel before emergency crews arrived, said Assistant Portsmouth Fire Chief Steve Achilles.

The Miss Stacy was flooding due to damage on her hull and listing at a dangerous angle while the Eugenia Moran, a single-screw 2,875-hp vessel operated by Moran Towing, worked to free the vessel. Workboat tells us she was brought to safety at the docks of the local small cruise ship company Isles of Shoals Steamship and that the entire incident lasted about an hour..

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