Posted on 11/24/2004 12:32:26 PM PST by Red Badger
Norwegian registered tugboat has run aground outside of Gotland in the Baltic Sea and rescue crews fear the vessel may sink. Swedish rescue crews said the tugboat "Nestor" was listing badly and had probably been driven aground by a storm powerful enough to loosen the grip of the ship's anchor.
Five of the crew of six have been picked up by Swedish rescue services but one remains on board, reportedly trapped in a toilet. Extreme weather conditions have made rescue operations difficult.
"According to the information we have received a man is trapped in a toilet and he cannot get out due to the extreme lean of the ship," a rescue service spokesman said.
Divers were on the way to the site and the rescue crew were planning to try to board the vessel and knock in the shut door, or try to extract the trapped man via a vent in the side of the ship.
Rescue workers were reportedly searching on land for the final crew member on Tuesday after a life jacket was found on the sea shore. According to the Swedish shipping company that operates the Nestor, the crew was Polish.
Weather conditions were so poor that the Nestor could not be approached by helicopter or boat.
The other 5 guys left without breaking down the door to the toilet?
What a crappy way to die. I hope he makes it.
Trapped in a toilet on a tug boat in the North Sea during a storm. There's an epitaph I'll be glad not to have.
Owl_Eagle
Guns Before Butter.
For a minute I thought this was another story about Rather.
Maybe I'm more ignorant of boats than I thought, but how can a boat that ran aground sink?
Floating rocks. As a coastie, I saw dozens of recreational boats that hit floating rocks.
Man: I was trapped in a toilet on a sinking tugboat in the North Sea!
St.Peter: Come on in! This will keep people laffing up here for millennia!......
I take it there is a story behind that expression. Either that, or it's a Coastie expression applied to dumbasses who hit other boats.
A good bit of both. Nobody ever wanted to admit they were clueless as to their actual position and didn't know thedifference between a nun and a can, or more simply, the meaning of the red & green buoys.
When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
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