OYSTER BAY, N.Y. — A yacht that capsized with 27 friends and family aboard to watch Fourth of July fireworks was severely overcrowded and doomed to tip over, safety experts said Thursday as the skipper blamed the tragedy on a wave that came out of the dark.
Three children died after becoming trapped Wednesday night in the cabin of the 34-foot vessel off Oyster Bay, on the north shore of Long Island.
Sal Aureliano, who was at the helm of the Candi I, told the News 12 Long Island TV station that he saw two lightning bolts and then a wave suddenly hit.
"It turned the boat around," he said, his voice cracking. "It just turned the boat. I didn't see it. It was dark. I didn't see it."
Aureliano's nephew David Aureliano, 12, and two girls, 11-year-old Harley Treanor and 8-year-old Victoria Gaines, died.
The 24 other passengers, adults and children, were rescued from the water, mostly by fellow boaters, and were not seriously injured.
"The next thing I know, we're turning, and we just kept turning, and everybody was in the water. It was chaos," said Aureliano.
The cause of the accident was under investigation, but it could have been the weather, overcrowding, the wake from another vessel or a combination of factors, said Nassau County detective Lt. John Azzata. The area was crowded with boaters watching the fireworks, he said.
The Silverton yacht, built in 1984 but purchased recently, was under 60 feet of water Thursday, and officials worked to raise it. The yacht company filed for bankruptcy in April, and no one was available to say what the maximum number aboard should be.
Phil Cusumano, a Boston-based safety instructor and yacht captain with 35 years of experience, said there is no question the boat was badly overloaded. He said he would limit a vessel of that size to six adults. Other boating sites suggested a maximum of 15 passengers.
"Twenty-seven is just crazy," Cusumano said.
Police and the Coast Guard would not say how many of those aboard were adults and how many were children.
The boat's owner is Kevin Treanor, said attorney James Mercante, who was hired by an insurance company to represent him. Mercante said he had not spoken with Treanor but emphasized Treanor wasn't the yacht's operator.
Telephone calls to Treanor's home and work telephones went unanswered Thursday night.
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