Call it three for three.

A tiki boat captain rescued a man who couldn’t swim after his kayak capsized last weekend on the Allegheny River — the third such rescue by the Pittsburgh-based cruise company in the past 12 months.

A Cruisin’ Tikis Pittsburgh captain saw “someone bobbing in the river” while giving a safety talk before his scheduled 1 p.m. cruise on Sunday, said Dale McCue, one of the company’s three co-owners.

The wind pulled the kayak toward the Roberto Clemente Bridge, McCue said. The Allegheny’s current, however, kept tugging the man down toward the confluence of Pittsburgh’s three rivers.

Captain Chris Patton, a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed boat operator, then carefully maneuvered his octagonal-shaped tiki boat over to the man. And he did so very slowly. The vessel’s maximum speed peaks at about 8 mph.

The man’s life vest, which appeared to be an incorrect size, repeatedly jerked up. Patton turned off his engine, dropped a collapsible ladder and pulled the man onboard.

A private boat operator helped Patton bring the man to the North Shore, where Pittsburgh first responders, firefighters and River Rescue were waiting, public safety spokeswoman Cara Cruz said Monday.

The man, who officials did not name, refused treatment and left the scene, Cruz said.

Venture Pittsburgh confirmed on Monday that the man had rented a kayak from the South Side nonprofit group’s Kayak Pittsburgh - Downtown Pop-Up.

“The boating community in Pittsburgh is amazing and always watching out for each other,” Venture Pittsburgh spokeswoman Amy O’Neill said on Monday. “When the paddler capsized his kayak, the folks from Cruisin’ Tikis were there to offer help, a bystander saw the rescue in progress and called it in to 911, and another Kayak Pittsburgh paddler called our emergency line.”

O’Neill said the man “was wearing a properly fitted U.S. Coast Guard-approved personal floatation device, as is required for all Kayak Pittsburgh paddlers, which kept him afloat until help arrived.”

“It is so important to always wear your life jacket properly when you are out on the water,” she added.

McCue said the man, who didn’t speak English, might owe his life to the unique configuration of his company’s roughly 16-foot-wide tiki boats.

“They’re very maneuverable, more maneuverable than a traditional boat,” said McCue, 53, of Eighty Four, Washington County. “These could spin in one place on a dime. And they can go places other boats can’t.”

The boats, whose thatched-style roofs are fire-retardant and made from plastic, are pretty sturdy, McCue said. Each has been hurricane-tested at the original Cruisin’ Tiki location in Florida.

The company now boasts 43 franchises in North America, according to its website; the one McCue launched in 2018 with co-owners Joa Campise and Jason Ruhle is the only one in Pennsylvania.

Sunday’s rescue became the third rescue — “three, that we know of,” McCue quipped — that Cruisin’ Tiki Pittsburgh has made since last summer.

On July 8, Ruhle jumped into the Allegheny River to save a drowning boy. Ruhle was working as a captain and about halfway through a two-hour cruise marking a Jefferson Hills woman’s 50th birthday.

A month later, on Aug. 19, Captain Robb Rusiewicz pulled a woman in distress from the Monongahela River near Point State Park.

“You just have to be vigilant and safe in situations where people need help,” Rusiewicz told TribLive at that time. “Any good Samaritan would have stepped in.”

“No, we are not putting people in the water for these things,” said McCue with a smile, as he reloaded the three boats docked in a Monongahela River marina at about 2 p.m. Monday. “We were just very fortunate we were there.”

Patton first took the captain role with Cruisin’ Tikis Pittsburgh in 2021, McCue said.

The South Hills man has more than 20 years of boating experience and offered kayak instruction at Ohiopyle State Park, McCue said. Patton preferred not to speak on Monday with reporters.

McCue thinks part of the reason his captains have saved three people to date is because the boats are out on the water seven days a week.

“We’re getting a reputation for that — and we’ll take it,” McCue told reporters. “I’m just happy we were in the right place at the right time. Somebody clearly is putting us there.”

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