Port Canaveral Gambling Ship
PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) _ A 234-foot gambling ship sent out to sea to ride out Hurricane Erin sank today in the wind-whipped waters of the Atlantic. A survivor said he believed the captain and two other crew members went down with the ship.
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``When it started listing, eight of them abandoned ship in the life rafts, and the other three stayed on board, and they never saw them after the boat sank,″ said Coast Guard Petty Officer Chris Rose. Rose had said earlier that it was believed that all crew members were either rescued or awaiting rescue in life rafts.
The ship’s second engineer, who offered the first account, was safely hoisted in a basket onto a Coast Guard helicopter but ``can’t account for the other three,″ Rose said.
Only a skeleton crew was on board the Club Royale when it set out Monday from the Port of Palm Beach.
A total of seven crew members were lifted from rafts onto helicopters about 90 miles east of Port Canaveral this afternoon, and one was taken aboard a passing ship, Rose said. The missing were the captain, a cook and a new crew member, whose job the survivor didn’t know.
The rescued crew members were taken to Patrick Air Force Base near Cape Canaveral. Rose didn’t know their condition but said that the fact they were taken to the base instead of a hospital indicated none of them was seriously injured.
With the ship in trouble, crew members ``put their life jackets on and abandoned ship,″ said Senior Chief Petty Officer Luis Diaz. The engineer ``indicated that there were three other people aboard, and he didn’t see them at all.″
A Coast Guard jet spotted people in rafts after an automated distress signal was picked up at 8 a.m. EDT from the Club Royale about 90 miles east of Port Canaveral, said Petty Officer Scott Carr.
Conditions for rescue were precarious: 10-15 foot seas and 45-55 mph winds, Carr said.
Hurricane Erin slammed ashore early this morning at Vero Beach, some 130 miles north of Miami and roughly 50 miles south of this port town near Cape Canaveral. The storm came ashore farther north than originally forecast.
In addition to the rescue helicopters, four cutters and the merchant ship Sheldon Lykes were due in the area by midafternoon.
Heading to sea is considered safer for a ship than staying in port, and standard shipping industry practice is to sail away from the worst weather.
Erin complicated that task with its farther north than expected path, and with a rainy cloud mass stretching nearly the length of Florida. Some of the worst weather hit the area where the signal originated.
``It’s up to the captain where to go. You either go north or east,″ said Ben Murphy, executive director of the ship’s home port. ``You try to sail away from it. They were probably going to go north and then east.″
Port Canaveral Gambling Ship
Jill Dechello of GAT Marketing in Hollywood, spokeswoman for the Club Royale’s owners, had no immediate details on what happened. She would not release the owners’ names but said they recently acquired the ship and began sailing it from the Port of Palm Beach at the beginning of July.
The ship, built in Germany in 1987, was equipped with blackjack and other casino games for two trips a day. Gambling is allowed after the ship gets three miles from U.S. shores.
Gambling Ships Port Canaveral Fl
Its advertising promoted ``the ultimate casino and nightclub cruise experience″ from $24.95 and featured a picture of the ship, dice, a roulette wheel and a cocktail waitress in a tuxedo-style vest, blouse, bowtie and shorts.