About 9:30 a.m., the Coast Guard Command Center in Corpus Christi received a distress call from a 24-foot center console boat that had started to take on water north of Rockport, according to a press release. The three passengers – a 14-year-old girl and two men, ages 51 and 52 – put on life jackets and abandoned the boat, which soon sunk. The Coast Guard dispatched a rescue boat from Port Aransas and a helicopter from Corpus Christi for a rescue operation.