Three Rescued in Bay

Three East Hampton men were rescued from Gardiner’s Bay Monday night after a search that began with a 911 call for help when their rowboat began taking on water.

The men had rowed out into the bay to fish for porgies, according to Ed Michels, the East Hampton Town’s chief harbormaster. They had no engine and lost an oar.

As the weather deteriorated, the boat was in a precarious position. When they were unable to make it back to shore, one of the men phoned his wife.

The woman called 911 at 7:46 p.m., but the only location she could provide dispatchers was that the men were “somewhere off Springs-Fireplace Road,” police Capt. Chris Anderson said. At 8:35 p.m., with a search beginning in the bay, according to Captain Anderson, air and water temperatures were in the upper 60s, there were four to five-foot choppy seas, and 20 to 25-mile-per-hour winds.

Working off the assumption the men were off Gerard Drive, a Marine Patrol boat went out to search, asking for Coast Guard Station Montauk to assist. “A language barrier inhibited our ability to zero in on a good location,” Captain Anderson said.

“The biggest problem we had was finding them,” Chief Michels said. Cellphone GPS tracking placed the boaters at several different places, including Montauk, Maidstone, and Gerard Drive. Rescuers shot off flares and used spotlights. A Suffolk County helicopter was also requested.

Before a formal search pattern was employed, Chief Michels said the Marine Patrol crew spotted the small boat on a wave crest in the bay between Fresh Pond and Gerard Drive.

The men — Freddy Coyago-Valladolio, 31, Jose Zeldon, 37, and Fredi Sanchez-Teneasca, 42 — were soaking wet, but still in the boat. They had no life vests or other survival gear. “They just had some fishing poles and the one oar,” Chief Michels said.

About an hour and half into the search, at 9:15, they were brought aboard the Marine Patrol boat. They came ashore at the Devon Yacht Club. An Amagansett Fire Department ambulance was called to treat the men for cold exposure at 9:25 p.m.

The men refused to be taken to the hospital and were released, Captain Anderson said, adding that they had been very lucky.

“I think the idea was to row out and do some fishing and come back. With 30-mile-per-hour winds, it doesn’t happen like that,” Chief Michels said.

“If we didn’t find them I don’t know if they would have made it through the night,” he said.