A fishing boat started taking on water in False Creek Tuesday morning, but was saved in the nick of time by quick-acting Coast Guard crews.

The 30-foot boat was unoccupied when it started sinking near Olympic Village, and was almost fully submerged by the time Coast Guard vessels from Horseshoe Bay and Sea Island arrived at the scene.

An environmental response team boarded the boat and installed pumps to unload water, in the hopes of preventing a fuel spill.

“Anything we can do to keep the hydro carbons in the boat where they belong, we’ll take any step we need to to do that,” said pollution response officer Randy Farrell.

The boat has the capacity to hold hundreds of litres of diesel. Fortunately, the tanks didn’t leak.

The owner, John Zelinksy, said he’s only had the boat for a few months. He was alerted about the sinking Tuesday morning and rushed to the scene.

“Every day I drive by and look at it, no issues,” he said. “Then all of a sudden I get a phone call: ‘Guess what, your boat’s sunk.’”

With crowds of onlookers watching, slowly but surely the boat started to rise out of the water and was ultimately saved.

Zelinksy said they haven’t determined what caused it to start sinking, but that no holes have been found on the boat.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Scott Hurst