No injuries were reported after a U.S. cruise ship hit a rock off the coast of Alaska on Monday, the second time the vessel has run aground in 14 months.

The Empress of the North ran into trouble at 2 a.m. PT in the Icy Strait, southwest of Juneau, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. None of the 281 passengers and crew members on board were injured.

A U.S. Coast Guard vessel helps remove passengers from the Empress of the North cruise ship, which ran aground Monday near Juneau, Alaska. There were no reports of injuries.
(United States Coast Guard/Associated Press)

They have been transferred to other vessels, and will be put up overnight in hotels in Juneau.

The boat did take on some water after running aground, said Chief Petty Officer Barry Lane, a coast guard spokesman.

The ship is a double-hulled vessel, meaning it essentially has two layers of "skin," Lane said.

"That first layer of skin was penetrated," he said. "Some water was flooding into that first layer of the hull, but [the boat] wasn't in any sense sinking. It ran aground."

He said no fuel or oil is leaking from the 110-metre-long ship, which is designed to resemble a 19th-century steamship with a three-storey paddlewheel.

The vessel is now off the reef, and is proceeding slowly under its own power to Juneau.

The Seattle-based boat, which docked in Vancouver and Victoria earlier this month, is regularly used to tour Alaska's inside passage. It is operated by Seattle's Majestic America Line.

In March 2006, the boat hit a sandbar in the Columbia River in Portland, Ore. There were no injuries in that incident.