Boat quickly filling with water before rescue

CBC

September 14, 2012 at 1:32 p.m.

Peter Augustine took this picture of his herring boat after he was rescued about 11 kilometers from North Cape, P.E.I.

Three fishermen from New Brunswick had to take to a life raft when their boat began taking on water near North Cape, P.E.I. early Friday morning.

RCMP, Island EMS and the Tignish Fire Department were called but a fishing boat out of Skinners Pond, captained by Alden Gaudet, was able to pick up the three soon after they had abandoned ship about 11 kilometres off North Cape. None of them were injured.

Peter Augustine of Elsipogtog, N.B. is the captain of the herring boat that went down.

"One of my water intake hoses broke and the water was just coming in and I don't know, in about five minutes the water was up to four feet anyway, inside the engine room," he said.

"We waited until the boat was almost in the water and then we got in the life raft and we stayed there five minutes, 10 minutes, until we got on to another boat."

Augustine is thankful Gaudet and his P.E.I. crew were able to come to the rescue.

Augustine has been fishing since 1995 and has never had an incident like this.