Wayward sailboat drifts onto beach | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARADVERTISER.COM
The Honolulu Fire Department and Ocean Safety personnel worked Sunday to get a tow line aboard a sailboat anchored offshore that earlier ran aground along the rocky shoreline at Sewers Beach in Maili. Lifeguards using personal watercraft pulled the boat off the rocks.

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Firefighters and lifeguards rescued a sailboat that ran aground Sunday off Maili.

Honolulu Fire Capt. Terry Seelig said several people live on the yawl, which is usually kept anchored at Waianae Small Boat Harbor, but they have to move it out of the harbor every 72 hours under state rules.

While moving the two-masted boat, the occupants lost control, and the roughly 35-foot vessel drifted onto Sewers Beach at about 3:10 p.m.

No one was hurt and the boat was not damaged.

"They didn’t have any control over the vessel because they didn’t have their sails raised and their engine wasn’t operating," Seelig said. "It was a boat that wasn’t in sound operating shape."

People on the beach said the boaters ran out of gas.

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Lifeguards used a personal watercraft to tow the boat off the beach and anchored it about 200 yards offshore, Seelig said.

Firefighters determined it was not a safe place to keep the vessel, and a fireboat towed it back to Waianae Harbor at about 5 p.m.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources was notified of the incident.