The captain of the doomed freighter El Faro said in his final call for help that the ‘‘clock is ticking’’ as his ship took on water and lost propulsion.

Part of Captain Michael Davidson’s call was played Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla., during a US Coast Guard investigative hearing into the Oct. 1 sinking. All 33 aboard died when the ship sank in 15,000 feet of water near the Bahamas.

Davidson called the emergency operations center just after 7 a.m. the day the El Faro sank. He’d left a message minutes earlier with a company official, whom he couldn’t reach, saying the ship had a ‘‘pretty good list,’’ or was tipping, but that people were safe.

‘‘We had a hull breach, a scuttle blew open during a storm,’’ Davidson told an operator in a follow-up call minutes later, his voice calm but urgent. ‘‘We have water down in three holds with a heavy list. We’ve lost the main propulsion unit, the engineers cannot get it going.’’

The operator asked the captain for his satellite phone number and to spell the name of the vessel, at which point Davidson sounded frustrated and said ‘‘the clock is ticking’’ and he needed to speak to a company official. He can also be heard calling to crew members to ask what they’re seeing.

The call was sent to Captain John Lawrence, the designated person onshore for Tote Services Inc. He said Davidson sounded calm, and planned to ‘‘push all the buttons’’ or activate his emergency beacons.

That call was not recorded, but Lawrence took notes and testified that Davidson said the crew was safe.

‘‘He said he felt he could pump out the hold . . . I expected to talk to him further,’’ Lawrence said.

After an unsuccessful attempt to reach the ship again, Lawrence called the US Coast Guard. A petty officer told Lawrence that, based on preliminary information, he didn’t think that the ship was yet in ‘‘the distress phase’’ and said he’d try to call the ship’s satellite phone.

In that call, also played at the hearing, neither Lawrence nor the Coast Guard officer mention Hurricane Joaquin, which had become a Category 4 storm with wind speeds 130- 156 miles per hour.

Lawrence said that after the call, his office charted the course of the storm along with the ship’s last known coordinates. Only then did he realize Joaquin was bearing down on the El Faro.

The investigative panel has been hearing testimony in the El Faro’s sinking since Tuesday, and asking questions about how Tote tracked hurricanes and their vessels at sea.

Officials have said the responsibility for tracking weather was the captain’s, and that onshore staff was there to help only if asked by the master.

Still, testimony revealed that Lawrence had sent an e-mail in August asking Tote vessels to send daily updates and storm avoidance plans during Tropical Storm Erika. The company also sent out a safety alert before Hurricane Danny, the named storm before Erika.