Cruise Nearly Flushed
By David Crohn

Is this how the Titanic got started?

After mistaking a stopped-up toilet for a leak, a passenger on the Southern Elegance casino boat phoned a relative who called 911 around 10:30 p.m. on Friday, June 16. Suffolk County cops called the Coast Guard, who were forced to board the boat, which was stopped in the ocean off Fire Island.

Fortunately for the boat’s operators, the incident didn’t cause too much of a stir, said Coin Castle Inc. spokeswoman Kerri Rivas.

After officials determined that someone had thrown a roll of toilet paper into the head—and that the boat wasn’t taking in water, as the passenger suspected—they said good night and sent the Elegance on its way.

“Everybody thought it was funny. It was a five-minute thing,” Rivas told The News.

The passenger who called authorities, apparently an elderly lady, may be fodder for maritime jibes since the incident. But given the boat’s inauspicious debut, one can hardly blame her for fearing the worst.

Since the 175-foot, steamship-style boat arrived at the Bay Shore Marina from Myrtle Beach last month, protesters have shown up to denounce it. The report of a gas leak on June 3 prompted an ongoing Coast Guard investigation.

The Town of Islip has applied for a restraining order prohibiting the business from launching the boat from Bay Shore. It’s the second one the town has sought since a judge lifted the first one earlier this month