Six days after a quahogger’s boat flipped in the Westport River’s West Branch, friends of the owner managed to right it, bail it out and tow it south to Westport Point Wednesday morning.

The quahogger was raking around 11 a.m. last Thursday, March 21 near Judy’s Island when his 19-foot center console somehow turned into the weather. The boat began taking on water over the stern, swamped and rolled over, sending the man into the water.

One quahogger said the man easily could have ended up in deep trouble, but got lucky.

“‘He said it happened so fast,’” he said of the quahogger who went in the water. “There were probably four boats there but the guy that plucked him out was very close and saw him go in. He said it happened in a matter of seconds. By the time he got back to the stern to cut the line, the boat went down. He ended up hanging onto the stern.”

Crews were unable to right the turtled boat that day and secured it to anchors, where it sat for six days. With weather coming Thursday and Friday, friends took advantage of Wednesday morning’s low tide to go out, secure and bring it in. They got a good morning with no wind and flat seas.

Chris Leonard, Westport’s director of marine services, was on hand to offer what help he could, though the town does not have salvage insurance and he thus could not use the harbormaster’s boat to assist.

“The (harbormaster’s) boat is more or less and ambulance for the water,” he said. “But what I can do is I can stand by for safety and try to give my professional opinion if they need it. So that’s what I was there for.”

As it was, he said the salvage went smoothly, mostly due to the son of one of the quahogger’s friends, who donned a wetsuit and got in the water to help secure lines.

“They had it (flipped over) in no time,” Leonard said.

Now that the boat is free, Leonard plans to contact Westport police and fire, the US Coast Guard, and the Massachusetts environmental police, who he first alerted last week, to let them know it is no longer in the river.

As for any fuel spillage, Leonard said there was little to none.