Missing boater found

By L.E. Crowley
Town correspondent
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A 23-year-old year-old Marshfield boater who was reported missing after leaving the fireworks at Scituate Harbor late Saturday night was found in his boat on the South River after the craft ran out of gas.

Marshfield resident Brad Jenkins was towed back to a mooring in Norwell on the North River Sunday at about 6:45 a.m. by the Norwell Harbormaster’s office after a fellow boater located Jenkins trying to head to shore after his boat ran out of gas.

“He ran out of gas and drifted along the river all night,” said First Petty Officer Zach Zubricki, a spokesman for the Coast Guard.

Assistant Scituate Harbormaster Mike Bearce said Jenkins’s father contacted the Coast Guard station in Boston at about 4 a.m., when Jenkins did not return to his mooring on Norwell’s North River.

Members of harbormaster offices in Scituate and Norwell joined the search for Jenkins with a 25-foot Coast Guard boat dispatched from Point Allerton in Hull.

Bearce said Scituate Police searched Peggotty Beach and other areas on shore while rescue crews on boat searched the coastline from Peggotty Beach to the “spit” and along the North River from Scituate to Norwell and Marshfield.

The Coast Guard’s Zubricki said a “good Samaritan” boater located Jenkins floating on his 17-foot boat, which ran out of gas when Jenkins decided to take a pleasure cruise before docking for the night. Scituate's Bearce said Jenkins was found on the South River in Marshfield.

The good Samaritan towed Jenkins back to his mooring until a crew from Norwell’s harbormaster took over and brought Jenkins back to a mooring in Norwell.

Jenkins told rescuers he had a cell phone but lost it and could not contact anyone for help.

Zubricki said there were no issues of intoxication and no charges will be filed in the incident. He said boaters should check their gas tanks before heading into open water and should have a back-up form of communication like a ship-to-shore radio, because cell phones cannot always be counted on for work.

“When you’re under way, anything can happen,” Zubricki said.