By Jim Smith
HYANNIS, Mass. — A 20-year-old Dublin woman who was spending a working vacation with Irish friends on Cape Cod drowned Sunday night after falling off a chartered cruise boat in Hyannis Harbor.
Catherine Kinsella drowned after apparently falling through a broken railing on the boat, the Sea Genie II. On board at the time were about 40 other passengers, many of them young Irish enjoying music and conversation.
Commander Thomas Barone of the Coast Guard Station in Woods Hole told the Echo Tuesday that the cruiser and an unoccupied sailboat evidently had a slight collision during the cruise, which may have knocked a 3-foot section of railing off the Sea Genie II. It is suspected that Kinsella slipped into the water from the unprotected area of the broken railing.
"It would be premature to draw any conclusions about how this tragedy happened, but the circumstances are the subject of an ongoing investigation by us and by local and state police," Barone said.
Barone said that the Coast Guard received a distress call from the cruise boat at 11:20 Sunday night, reporting that a passenger had gone overboard. A rescue boat was dispatched immediately, and around 12:50 a.m. Kinsella’s body was found floating in the harbor by crew members of a Coast Guard helicopter. Efforts to revive her were unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead at Cape Cod Hospital.
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Kinsella was working at Dunkin’ Donuts and living with friends at the Cape Holiday Motel, having arrived on the Cape in late June. Motel manager Christina Canning said that Kinsella’s friends are devastated by her death. "Kate was a very friendly and outgoing young lady with a lot of friends," Canning said. "Everybody’s pretty shook up about this."
As the Echo went to press, funeral arrangements were incomplete.