Rough seas hurl two boats onto the rocks

PATONG: Two tour boats being towed from Phuket to Ranong ended up on the rocks on Saturday afternoon after the line connecting them to their tugboat snapped in rough seas. A call came in to Marine Police from a friend on shore who had received a distress call from four crewmen on the “Salten 2”, caught on the rocks near Koh Mayom Ding in Patong Bay. Upon investigation, Marine Police discovered that two boats were actually in trouble. They said that the tugboat, the “Bangkok Orient”, began towing a freighter, the Salten 2 and another tour boat, the “Ofoten 2”, from the Phuket Deep Sea Port to Ranong on Saturday afternoon. At around 3 pm, the boats reached Patong Bay and met rough seas. The cable connecting the Salten 2 to the freighter broke, and the waves hurled the Salten 2 and the Ofoten 2 away from the tugboat. Then the cable connecting the two tour boats also broke, sending them off in different directions. The crewmen on Salten 2 managed to swim back to the beach in front of Thavorn Beach Village Hotel before the Marine Police arrived at about 1 am yesterday. The Ofoten 2 was later found off Tai Pao Beach near the Thavorn Beach Village Hotel with its two crewmen still on board. The Marine Police radioed the Bangkok Orient and found that it was already anchored in Patong Bay, along with the freighter. The crewmen all escaped injury. The hulls of both boats were cracked and they remain stuck on the rocks.