Three family members were sleeping on their boat, anchored off Martha’s Vineyard on Monday night, when they were awakened by the sound of their two barking dogs. Their boat was on fire, and it was sinking.
As flames engulfed their 30-foot motorboat, named Third Wave, a 73-year-old woman, her 72-year-old husband and their 37-year-old son jumped overboard into the dark water. Together, they swam to the shore of Naushon, a sparsely populated island that has been owned by the Forbes family, the founders of Forbes magazine, since the mid-19th century.
Suffering from burns, they sought refuge in an empty gray farmhouse near the shore. They spent the next 30 hours there, with no way to call for help, until the son found that their marine radio had washed ashore. At 7:20 a.m. on Wednesday, he radioed for help.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” he cried, according to a recording of the call provided by the Coast Guard. “Our ship burned while we were sleeping, and we barely escaped.”
He told the Coast Guard exactly where they were. “I’m in the farmhouse on Tarpaulin’s Cove — right by the freaking lighthouse,” he said.
The police, a local harbormaster and the Coast Guard had been searching for the family since Tuesday evening, when another son reported that they had not returned home, as expected. But the family’s cellphones, which sank along with their boat, were going straight to voice mail and cellphone pings did not give an accurate location, the Coast Guard said.
After the son’s Mayday call, the Coast Guard contacted the Naushon Trust, which helps take care of the island, and dispatched a helicopter from Cape Cod.
Staff members from the Naushon Trust who were on the island “immediately mobilized for a rescue,” the trust said in a statement. They provided first aid to the family and coordinated with the Coast Guard, the trust said, praising them for a “stellar job” and “timely, professional and caring response.”
The Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued the family, who were taken to Cape Cod Hospital and treated for burns and smoke inhalation. They had left Eel Pond in Falmouth, Mass., on Friday and had planned to remain anchored between Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard before returning to Falmouth on Tuesday.
“Quick thinking and having quality equipment allowed the family to survive and call for help,” Scott Backholm, a search-and-rescue mission coordinator for the Coast Guard in Southeastern New England, said in a statement. “Mariners are encouraged to pursue first aid training and ensure their vessels are outfitted with proper safety equipment.”
But the family’s ordeal was not over.
While the Coast Guard declined to release the names of the family members, WCVB, a Boston-area television station, identified the couple as Patrick and Cynthia Sullivan and their son as Tyler Sullivan.
The station reported that Patrick Sullivan was being treated in a burn unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and that Tyler Sullivan was in stable condition with third-degree burns on his arm. Ms. Sullivan was in critical condition, according to another son, Christopher Sullivan.
“We are just praying for my mom and dad at this time,” he said in a text message on Wednesday. “Please just pray for them.”
The Coast Guard said there may have been an electrical fire on the family’s boat, which a Falmouth official said was registered to Patrick Sullivan. The two dogs that were on board have not been found.
Georgia Gee contributed research.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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