TRAVERSE CITY -- He sunk his boat on his bachelor party, but Bryan Wyzgoski figures his bride-to-be will forgive him.
"I think she'll still take me," he said with a wide grin.
The Traverse City resident, clad in full pirate gear for the party, was aboard his 1984 Aqua Patio in West Grand Traverse Bay with six friends Friday afternoon. They put in at Bowers Harbor on the way to Power Island for a camping trip, but the boat's left pontoon sprung a leak less than halfway to the island.
"It was a patched hole we had fixed," Wyzgoski, 25, said. "Well, apparently didn't fix."
The crew called police, and Peninsula Township Fire and Rescue quickly sent out a boat to pluck the men from their sinking craft. Because the rescue boat could only hold so many, it had to make two trips to the vessel to remove everyone on board.
"I just got wet shoes, that's about it," said Bryon Seelbach, 24, who was on the first trip.
By the time the rescue boat returned for the remaining partiers, the situation had grown a bit more dire. The boat was nearly 75 percent underwater, although one pontoon remained sound.
"The water is cold, that is what was going through my mind," Craig Pilawski, 24, said. "We were trying to salvage everything, and more importantly, get as much weight on one side as we could to save us."
The pontoon eventually capsized and was towed in, barely afloat, by the rescue vessel.
The crew was lucky they were that close to land, Peninsula Township Chief Rich Vandermey said.
"Fortunately, they were all able to get back to dry land," he said.
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