The yacht club restaurant is shown still attached to the barge after being ripped from its moorings in an early October barge accident on the Ohio River across from Cincinnati.
The Coast Guard says the reason a barge wiped out the Ludlow Bromley Yacht Club of Ludlow, Kentucky, was because a crewman fell asleep at the controls.
The club is detour from the Great Loop, which Quimby’s Cruising Guide described as “another great weekend place to pull up and hang out for an evening of live music.” An earlier headline noted that it was a “hotspot on the Great Loop,” which as one reader pointed out, is not really true since Ludlow is 450 miles from the Loop route.
According to Cincinnati.com, On Oct. 2, a 1,200-foot tow and barge combination carrying rock, sand and gravel collided with the longstanding club ripping the restaurant and marina in half. Boats docked there were also damaged.
According to the Cincinnati Business Journal, the barge dragged a portion of the floating restaurant and marina down the river, and the remaining structure sunk. The Coast Guard estimated the damage to the Ludlow Bromley Yacht Club at $450,000.
On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment Cincinnati released its findings, laying blame. News reports say the crewman in question has lost his mariner’s credential.
The towing vessel, named the Dale Artigue, operated by Florida Marine Transport was pushing 15 loaded barges and was undamaged in the crash.
