Police said passengers restrained the suspect after a boat captain was wounded aboard a catamaran returning to Honokohau Harbor.
HONOLULU, Hawaii — A 21-year-old Kansas man has been charged with attempted murder and assault after police said he stabbed a boat captain during a snorkel tour off the Kona coast Thursday afternoon, forcing passengers aboard the vessel to step in as the boat headed back to harbor.
Authorities said the attack turned a routine three-hour excursion into a violent emergency at sea and left a longtime Kona captain hospitalized with wounds to his abdomen, head and hands. Investigators have not said what prompted the attack, and that unanswered question now sits at the center of the case as prosecutors move forward and the tourism company involved tries to reassure workers and customers after a rare act of violence on the water.
According to Hawaii Island police, officers were called at 3:21 p.m. Thursday to Honokohau Harbor after word came in that a vessel was returning from sea with both the victim and the suspect on board. Police said Avery Nissen, of Overland Park, Kansas, attacked the captain with a filet knife while the group was on a three-hour snorkel tour. By the time the catamaran was making its way back toward shore, other passengers had intervened and restrained him, police said. Local television station Hawaii News Now reported that emergency radio traffic described a white, 50-foot sailing catamaran coming into the harbor with two injured people, one bleeding from a hand and another suffering a wound to the lower abdomen. That dispatch traffic, paired with the police timeline, shows how quickly the crew and passengers shifted from hosting a leisure trip to managing a medical and law enforcement crisis in open water.
Police have identified the suspect as a visitor, but investigators have released few details beyond his name, age and hometown. They said the captain, a 62-year-old man, suffered a stab wound to the lower abdomen and numerous knife cuts to the head and hands. Hawaii News Now identified him as Stanley Lurbiecki, a veteran in the local boating industry. He was taken to Kona Community Hospital and was listed in stable condition. Mark Towill, owner and president of Hawaii Nautical, said in remarks carried by Hawaii News Now that the captain was recovering and praised the crew’s response after the attack. Towill said he was grateful the company’s team was safe and that the emergency ended without more serious harm. What remains unknown is why police say Nissen allegedly attacked during what had been a commercial snorkel trip. As of Sunday, investigators still had not publicly described a motive, any prior interaction between the two men, or whether there had been warnings or disruptive behavior before the stabbing.
The case has drawn unusual attention in Hawaii because violent assaults on tour boats are rare, especially on trips built around snorkeling and sightseeing off the Big Island’s west coast. Honokohau Harbor is a busy jumping-off point for recreational and commercial vessels serving Kona’s ocean tourism economy, where catamarans and smaller boats carry visitors to reefs, spinner dolphin areas and offshore waters nearly every day. That context makes the incident stand out not only as a criminal case but also as a shock to an industry that depends on a sense of routine safety. Hawaii News Now reported that Towill said he had never heard of anything like this happening in the business. The language used by police also underscored the seriousness of the injuries. Officers said the weapon was a filet knife, a tool commonly found aboard charter and tour vessels, and described multiple cuts in addition to the abdominal wound. Those details suggest a sudden and sustained struggle rather than a brief confrontation, though investigators have not yet released a fuller narrative of how the violence unfolded minute by minute.
After consulting with the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney on Friday, police charged Nissen with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and second-degree assault. His total bail was set at $1.57 million. Court records summarized in police and local media reports show that his initial appearance was scheduled for Monday, April 20, in Kona District Court. That hearing is expected to be the next public step in the case and could offer the first fuller account from prosecutors about what they believe happened aboard the vessel. It may also clarify whether additional charges are possible, whether Nissen has legal counsel and whether prosecutors plan to seek continued detention under the current bail amount. Police have asked anyone with information to contact Detective Bradley Llanes, indicating that investigators may still be gathering witness statements from passengers and crew. The court process should begin to answer several open questions, but the motive and any mental health or behavioral issues connected to the allegation had not been publicly addressed by Sunday.
Even in the limited public record so far, the human side of the episode is clear. A harbor return that should have ended with passengers stepping ashore instead ended with sirens, emergency medical care and a veteran captain fighting through visible injuries. Towill said the captain was “a real hero and a fighter,” a short statement that framed Lurbiecki not only as the injured party but as a familiar figure in a close-knit marine community. Passengers, too, appear to have played a central role. Police said they intervened and restrained the suspect before the vessel reached shore, an action that may have prevented more serious injuries aboard a boat with no quick exit and limited space. For Kona’s charter workers, the image is a jarring one: a leisure cruise suddenly becoming an emergency scene miles from shore, where calm reactions from ordinary people can matter as much as the response waiting at the harbor.
As of Sunday, Nissen remained charged in the case, the captain was reported in stable condition, and the next public milestone was the Monday, April 20, court appearance in Kona, where prosecutors are expected to outline the allegations in greater detail.
Author note: Last updated April 19, 2026.