Tahoe Queen hits high winds on NYE trip; Not stuck on sand

7 p.m. update: South Tahoe Now carried a story written by KTVN News earlier today about the Tahoe Queen. They have printed a retraction as the Coast Guard and passenger's stories proved to be false:

2 News needs to make a correction to a story we first brought you early Thursday morning in regards to an incident involving the Lake Tahoe Queen, one of two tour boats that cruises Lake Tahoe.

We originally reported that the Queen had run aground in Zephyr Cove, Nevada early Thursday morning after taking passengers on a New Years Eve cruise. That information that was reported came from United States Coast Guard personnel and was corroborated with a passenger on board.

The Tahoe Queen typically runs from Ski Run Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe to Emerald Bay and back. When the coast guard insisted that the boat had gotten stuck in Zephyr Cove it made us question the information.

After speaking with several other law enforcement agencies as well as Aramark, the company that operates Lake Tahoe Cruises, we learned that the boat was on it's way back from the New Year's Eve cruise when high winds picked up and made the waters difficult to travel. Aramark tells Channel 2 that it is company policy for the boat to stop operation and request a tug boat to assist them in making it back to shore when these high winds persist. Unfortunately, it took that tug boat longer than anticipated to reach the boat causing passengers to feel stranded and become upset with the situation.

Aramark says they are still investigating what took the tug so long to get there as well any other issues that arose during the incident.

We sincerely apologize for the error in the original report.