THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 21, 1995 TAG: 9508210022
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
It was to have been a fun adventure, a night of fishing for five relatives, most from Suffolk. But the midnight boat trip on the James River became a fight for survival.
A father, his son and a cousin barely made it to safety, clinging - battered and bruised - for seven hours to a small lighthouse. Two other men who had accompanied them are missing and presumed drowned.
Richard Wynn Carroll, 31, and his son, Richard Jr., 9, of the 600 block of Adkins Circle, Suffolk, and a cousin, Solomon Wesley Darden, 12, also of Suffolk, were treated at Riverside Regional Medical Center and released. All had cuts and bruises and the younger Carroll also had a head injury.
The search continued until dusk for the missing men, ages 18 and 26. Their names were being withheld until relatives could be informed.
Wilford Kale, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, said the group had set off about midnight in a small craft from the boat ramp at Peterson's Boat Basin on Salters Creek near the mouth of the James River.
Their 19-foot boat is believed to have been rented and it was unclear how much boating experience they had. The river was choppy at the time, and some experienced mariners later said they had trouble navigating the waterway. A small-craft advisory was in effect on the coast at the time with a heavy surf advisory posted.
About an hour after they set out, as they headed to the Suffolk side of the Monitor-Merrimack Bridge-Tunnel, steady northeast winds and a rapidly ebbing tide began overwashing the boat and it finally capsized.
The spot where the boat foundered is a mile south of Salters, near the junction of the James and the Elizabeth rivers and about one mile from the safety of shore, the lighthouse or the bridge-tunnel complex.
``Carroll got himself and his son into life jackets and grabbed onto Darden,'' Kale said. ``They kicked and swam and paddled about a mile'' to the lighthouse.
The small lighthouse stands in the midst of the river atop a largely submerged foundation of piled rocks. It is not easily scaled in calm waters, and the rough river severely buffeted the trio against the rocks as they tried to climb to safety.
``They hung on the lighthouse from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. when a charter fishing boat, the Bay Fisher, saw them and alerted the Coast Guard,'' Kale said. A Coast Guard boat reached them a short time later and took them ashore.
Carroll told authorities that he had last seen the 26-year-old swimming toward the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel and that the 18-year-old had been clinging to the capsized boat. They were not believed to have had life vests.
There was no evidence of the wreckage or of either man, however, and Kale said they were presumed to have drowned. There also was no sign of the sunken craft or debris from it.
A large search was launched within a half-hour of the rescue at the lighthouse with one helicopter each from the Navy and the Coast Guard and a flotilla of boats from the Coast Guard, Newport News police, the Navy and the Marine Resources Commission.
Kale said the Marine Resources Commission will resume its search at dawn. In addition to seeking the missing men, ``We need to find the boat so we can recover it and try to determine if anything malfunctioned or if there was a leak.''
KEYWORDS: DROWNING ACCIDENT BOATING FATALITY by CNB