Feds probe Coast Guard vessel, boat collision

Federal agents are in Charleston to investigate the weekend collision between a Coast Guard vessel and a commercial catamaran.

Three agents from the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the accident Saturday involving a 25-foot Coast Guard small boat and the tour boat Thriller.

The boats collided about 8:30 p.m. in Charleston Harbor, shortly after the annual Christmas Parade of Boats.

Three of the 24 people aboard Thriller were injured. The boat suffered moderate above-the-water-line damage, according to the Coast Guard.

No one aboard the Coast Guard boat was injured, and that vessel was not damaged. Conditions at the time were clear.

Phone calls to the company that operates Thriller were not returned Monday.

A Florence woman who was aboard Thriller said the harbor tour seemed to be going smoothly until the collision. "We were just going along and really and truly I felt like we got hit out of the blue," Donna Helms, 48, said. "Maybe a millisecond before the boat hit us, I heard somebody scream, 'It's going to hit us,' and then it slammed into us." Helms and her husband were sitting on the side of Thriller that was struck by the other boat.

Helms disputed Coast Guard accounts that all the passengers on the tour boat were evacuated. "I kept thinking, 'Why don't they get us off this boat,' " she said. "It could be damaged and taking on water."

She said passengers were eager to get back to Ripley Point, where Thriller embarks, but the Coast Guard escorted Thriller to Charleston Harbor Marina and had the passengers gather in a small room and write statements about the incident.

Helms said she was surprised that the boat that struck Thriller did not come around to offer assistance. Another Coast Guard boat, a 41-foot rescue boat, came alongside after about five minutes and Coast Guard crew members attended to the passengers who were injured.

Helms said passengers did not get back to their cars until almost midnight.

The National Transportation Safety Board declined to release any other details Monday.