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Hundreds of passengers enjoying a popular Little River casino boat got more than they bargained for late Monday night when the vessel ran aground, leaving them stranded on the high seas near the N.C. border for about five hours.
The SunCruz VIII, which was supposed to dock at 12:15 a.m. Tuesday, wasn't safely moored to the waterfront in Little River until about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to several officials with the U.S. Coast Guard.
The ship had set sail with between 200 and 300 passengers about 7 p.m. Monday, the officials said. There were no reported injuries or medical problems during the incident.
Lt. Meridena Kauffman, a senior investigating officer with the Coast Guard in Charleston, said the trouble started when the ship's captain "made a turn and the stern of the vessel came out of the channel and touched the mud" en route to shore.
After that, it became a long waiting game until the tide came back up to get the 207-foot-long ship, which features 22 table games and 380 slots, moving again.
Douglas Allen, general manager for SunCruz Casinos in Little River, blamed the mishap on the weather conditions in the area.
"It was simply tides and winds that caused the vessel to get pushed under the sand," he said, noting that human error and mechanical problems were never an issue. Winds were blowing at about 14 miles per hour and low tide was about 2:20 a.m in the area where the vessel got stuck, according to the National Weather Service.
Sometime between 2 and 3 a.m., the Coast Guard station in Georgetown got a call from the captain alerting them of their predicament and confirming that there were no medical problems, said Petty Officer Paul Johannsen at the Georgetown station.
By then the SunCruz VIII had already been aground a few hours at the Calabash Crossroad near the North Carolina-South Carolina border, said Chief Petty Officer Jeff Price, a sector commander in Charleston.
To pass time, passengers were given made-to-order food and beverages, said Gary Inks, vice president of Sales and Marketing for Oceans Casino Cruises, which owns SunCruz Casinos.
Both he and Allen insisted that the captain and other crew members followed protocol and any medical needs the passengers had were addressed.
Coast Guard officials said that pleasure boats run aground daily, but that it is an anomaly to see a vessel the size of the SunCruz VIII do so.
In fact, neither Kauffman nor the representatives from SunCruz could recall the last time it happened in the waters between Little River and Georgetown.
"It's not totally uncommon for this type of thing to happen once in a while," said Kauffman, who said the investigation would likely not yield any conclusions for a few months. The hull of the vessel was checked by the Coast Guard Tuesday morning. Within hours, the Sun Cruz VIII was back in business, entertaining passengers during its 11 a.m. day cruise, he said.
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