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Japan fishery
training ship aids
disabled sailboat

The training vessel has the
stricken boat in tow; meanwhile,
another fishing boat sinks
southwest of Kona

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By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

A disabled 43-foot sailboat that was aided by a Japanese fishery training vessel may be placed in tow today and brought to Honolulu Harbor.

The mast of the sailboat, the Goodnight Moon, broke Saturday night more than 300 miles southwest of the Big Island. Ed Araki of Honolulu Agency, agent for the boat, said the mast may have broken in high wind and rough seas.

A tug sought to rendezvous with the training vessel Funakawa Maru, which had met the disabled sailboat and brought its four passengers aboard at midmorning yesterday. The 488-ton Funakawa Maru, from a marine engineering school in Akita Prefecture in northeastern Japan, had 40 people aboard, including 20 students.

The Funakawa Maru had the Goodnight Moon in tow, Araki said. It was likely the sailboat would be placed in tow of the tug during daylight today, rather than during overnight darkness, he said. The tug and sailboat may arrive late today, Araki said.

Second rescue

The Coast Guard, which helped coordinate the rescue of the Goodnight Moon, was also involved in another rescue yesterday.

It kept tabs on three people who were on a 45-foot fishing boat that sank 98 miles southwest of Kona at about 7 a.m.

The Naia Lele III had about 11,000 pounds of ahi aboard, but the son of the boat's owner and skipper said he didn't think the large amount of fish was a factor in the sinking.

"No, not really because that was a pretty regular occurrence," said Tate Marks, owner and skipper of the Kai Holo Pono, which brought the three men back to Honokohau Small Boat Harbor on the Kona coast.

The vessel Pearl Venus picked up the three from a life raft at about 9 a.m., after receiving a radio message from a Coast Guard system that tracks volunteer ships for help in emergencies.

Captain Joseph Marks and two crew members arrived aboard Tate Marks' boat about 6 p.m. Marks said the cause of the sinking is being investigated.