Two fishing vessels may have collided before running aground on Outer Banks, park says

Two fishing vessels ran aground at Cape Hatteras National Seashore late Wednesday, Feb. 2, and federal investigators suspect they collided just before it happened.

Five people were aboard the boats at the time, and all made it to shore safely, according to the National Park Service.

Photos shared by the park on Facebook show the vessels ended up on the Outer Banks beach within feet of each other.

Conditions were foggy at the time, officials said.

“The vessels reportedly bumped into each other a few times during the grounding incident,” the park reported.

The incident means there are now three vessels grounded at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, with the third being a 55-foot yacht that ran aground last week on Ocracoke Island. It has yet to be removed and the cause for the grounding has not been released.

Park rangers say the two boats that ran aground Wednesday sit north of Oregon Inlet, “approximately 0.8 miles south of Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s off-road vehicle ramp 4.”

One was identified as a 35-foot-long vessel named Reel Lucky, registered in New Jersey, and the other is the 32-foot-long vessel Bite Me, registered in Pennsylvania, the park said.

Investigators haven’t said what time it happened, but alerts were posted on social media around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 2.

The cause remains under investigation. The forecast Wednesday evening included “areas of fog,” which can limit visibility off shore in the dark.

Waters off the Outer Banks are considered treacherous for boaters, largely due to shoals created by colliding north-south currents off North Carolina.

Islands are known to appear and disappear in extreme cases, with the most recent example being Shelly Island. It vanished during a storm, about a year after forming.

This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 7:42 AM.