MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (WITN) – Five people were rescued after their boat in the Big Rock Blue Marlin Fishing Tournament caught fire this morning.
A tournament official confirmed that five people on the ‘Raptor’ safely got off the boat. Big Rock says another boat, ‘Cost Plus’, picked up the people, pulling them out of the ocean.
‘Cost Plus’ is not in the tournament, and just happened to be fishing in the area at the time.
‘Raptor’ is a 47-foot boat out of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The Coast Guard says all five people onboard abandoned ship and the other boat picked them up. They are investigating what happened.
At noon, ‘Cost Plus’ arrived at Morehead City, dropping some very thankful fishermen off at their hotel dock.
Paxton Peters says they were out fishing, not part of the tournament, when they first noticed gray smoke in the distance.
“Once we noticed the gray smoke and we’re trying to figure out what was going on, we started scanning the radio and heard the distress signal on the radio, and about the same time, we noticed the smoke went from gray to black,” Peters told WITN.
The Good Samaritan says that when they got there, the five were already in the water. Peters estimates they were some 50 miles off the coast when it happened.
“No, this is a first,” says Peters. “Hopefully the last.”
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