Cruise ship helps stranded skiff and crew in Southeast Alaska as Zuckerberg yacht stands by

A small cruise ship operating in Southeast Alaska made an unexpected detour on Monday night to help a 21-foot skiff that ran out of fuel between Petersburg and Juneau.

Michael Love, a software developer from New York City, was a passenger aboard the cruise ship and described the event on social media. 

What got his attention the most wasn’t the rescue itself — it was when the captain announced that the yacht of billionaire Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg was closer and hadn’t answered the radio call for help.

“There was near unanimous booing when the captain announced this,” he said in a post on the social media network Bluesky.

Vessel tracking services in the area back up that account — they show the $300 million, 387-foot yacht Launchpad slowing to a halt outside Farragut Bay as the UnCruise Adventures ship Wilderness Legacy steams around and past the Launchpad, stops at the apparent site of the skiff, then tows it into sheltered Farragut Bay.

Through a Bluesky message, Love said it was nice to be on a boat that was engaging with its surroundings in a positive way.

“Frankly, if I was Mark Zuckerberg I would be absolutely ecstatic at a chance to do something helpful for someone in need and maybe get some good PR out of it,” he said.

Social media accounts responding to Love’s account accused the yacht’s crew of violating international agreements that mandate aid from the nearest ship to one in distress.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Marine Exchange of Alaska, which monitors ship traffic in Alaska, there was no distress call — just a general request for assistance.

Coast Guard Public Affairs Specialist Shannon Shepard said by email that the Coast Guard heard the call for help just after 9:30 p.m. Monday night.

“At approximately 9:56 p.m., the Coast Guard determined they were not in distress and issued a marine assistance request broadcast on their behalf,” she said. 

John Hollingsworth is the chief operations officer of the Marine Exchange, which is based in Juneau and repeated the broadcast. 

“We did assist the Coast Guard with callouts on our radio and (were) able to hail the Wilderness Legacy who ended up rendering assistance,” he said.

“From my experience, I know that situations like this contain myriad details for the vessels involved, so the AIS (tracking) snippet you obtained only reveals one of those details,” he said by email. “I do know that Wilderness Legacy is an UnCruise vessel and is very familiar with Alaska waters, so that may have contributed to them rendering assistance quickly.”

No information was available Friday about who may have been aboard the Launchpad on Monday evening. The Launchpad has been in Southeast Alaska for much of the summer. 

The Wilderness Legacy’s detour is the second incidence of aid rendered by a small cruise ship in Southeast Alaska within two weeks. On July 30, the National Geographic Quest assisted a family who had to swim to shore in Glacier Bay National Park after a humpback whale sank their sailboat.

Dan Blanchard, who owns UnCruise, said he wasn’t initially aware of the Wilderness Legacy’s detour because “this kind of aid is such a common thing that it does not always rise to my attention.”

Sarah Scoltock, a spokeswoman for UnCruise, said the Wilderness Legacy was able to refuel the skiff after towing it into a sheltered area.

“The next day the (Wilderness Legacy’s) captain, Sean Manske, contacted them and received word they made it safely to Petersburg,” she said by email.