ST. SIMONS, Ga. — The U.S. Coast Guard in Savannah rescued four survivors in Gray's Reef, but the Coast Guard has confirmed that they are not the same four missing crewmen from an overturned ship in the St. Simons Sound.
The four survivors were hoisted from a weather buoy on Sunday after their vessel began taking on water, according to a Facebook post from the Coast Guard Air Station Savannah.
Crews hoisted the survivors to safety after being alerted about the situation via the survivors Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB).
The air station later confirmed with First Coast News that the two incidents are not related. As of 10:24 p.m., the four crewmen from the overturned Golden Ray cargo ship in the St. Simons Sound remain unaccounted for, according to the Coast Guard.
In the St. Simons Sound incident, the cargo ship was conducting a starboard turn to depart the harbor around 2 a.m. when it started listing over on the port side.
The 656-foot, 71,000-ton vehicle carrier vessel has a crew size of 24 people; 23 crew members and a pilot. Twenty of the 24 crew members have been safely rescued and looked over by medical personnel.
Rod Sullivan, a maritime law expert in Jacksonville, says the ship was under the control of a harbor pilot – the local mariners who bring big cargo vessels in and out of ports.
Because of that, he says “the odds that this was a navigational error is virtually zero. Probably what it was was a mechanical failure, like a steering failure.”