The Manhasset High School crew coach, Chris Greene, resigned after an incident last Wednesday night in which nine members of the girls crew team were rescued from Hempstead Harbor after their boat capsized.
The resignation was confirmed by Carol Jaronczyk, a secretary in the Manhasset district athletics office. Initially, the office said Greene was fired, but later she said he had resigned.
A speeding motor boat generated a wake that overturned the crew boat, said Brian Waterson, chief of the Port Washington Fire Department, which received a call from the Glen Cove Harbor Patrol at 6:45 p.m.
“The motor boat had no lights on,” Waterson said. “So the girls didn’t even see it coming.”
The harbor patrol pulled the girls from the water approximately 50 feet from shore, the patrol chief, John Testa, said.
“Everybody had life preservers on when [the patrol] showed up,” he said. Some swam to shore while another crew boat, led by the team’s coach, picked up the rest.
The patrol then contacted the Port Washington Fire Department and the Port Washington Police Department. Port Washington was assisted by the Glenwood Fire Company and the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department, each of which sent an ambulance, Waterson said.
Emergency medical services personnel evaluated the students for hypothermia and released them to their parents, he said.
Officials said they do not know the identity of the person who was driving the motor boat. “The patrol had [the motor boat] in its sights, but it was too far away,” Testa said. “It was more important to save the people in the water.”
Waterson said this isn’t the first time his department has assisted in water rescues that resulted from crew team accidents.
He advised against crew teams practicing after dark.
Testa echoed the sentiment, saying crew teams shouldn’t be in the water after sunset. “We could have given them a violation for that,” he said.
Vessels out after dark need to have flashlights and other types of equipment, he added.
“This possibly could have been avoided,” he said.
The Manhasset High School principal, Dean Schlanger, and the district athletic director, James Amen, declined to comment.
Efforts to reach Greene were unavailing.
