The 48th Annual White Marlin Open tournament in Ocean City, Maryland, kicked off on Monday, and on day one, the biggest catch was not fish, but the crew of one of the participating boats.
At approximately 10:30 a.m., Knot Stressin, a 34-foot Pursuit 345, started taking on water 60 miles offshore after losing the fight with a blue marlin. The six-person crew sent out a distress signal before abandoning the boat and boarding a life raft. The Coast Guard dispatched the 87-foot cutter Sailfish, along with a 47-foot lifeboat, but they were not the only ones to come to the rescue. The crew of another boat participating in the tournament, the 65-foot Fishbone, also heard the distress call and headed towards the sinking vessel. When they arrived, they found Knot Stressin half submerged, its bow sticking out of the water.
Fishbone rescued the crew and went out fishing for the rest of the day with them aboard. Boats are allowed to fish three out of the five tournament days, but because Fishbone devoted a large part of Monday to the rescue, the crew was granted an extra day. Knot Stressin was determined unrecoverable and sank to the bottom of Poor Man’s Canyon.
You can watch footage of the rescue in the video below.
