Safety

JONESPORT, Maine — August 29, 2014 — Coast Guard rescue crews assisted a Canadian-flagged fishing vessel early Friday morning after it began taking on water near Chandler Bay.

Watchstanders at the Sector Northern New England Command Center in Portland received a mayday call from the three-person crew aboard the Jill Marie at 4:28 a.m., indicating their 50-foot vessel struck a rock and was taking on water.

Rescue crews from Station Jonesport launched with dewatering pumps aboard a 47-foot motor life boat. Once on scene, the Coast Guard crew boarded the Jill Marie and began dewatering it.

As the pumps controlled the flooding, the Coast Guard escorted the Jill Marie and crew back to Jonesport. Safely moored at the pier, the Jill Marie crew quickly affected repairs and were soon underway again enroute to their homeport in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

August 20, 2014 — It's a disturbing new trend. The U.S. Coast Guard says they're receiving more fake distress calls than ever.

Officials say it's only risking their lives and costing taxpayers more money. A lot more money. It costs close to $100,000 a day for every search.

WITN caught up with Senior Chief Jeremy McConnell on Wednesday. He's the officer in charge of Coast Guard Station Fort Macon. McConnell says there's been seven fake mayday calls so far this year, compared to only two hoax calls in 2013.

"You're sending people out in really nasty weather. Searching for nothing. Putting people in danger," says McConnell. "And not just that. It takes us away from helping another mariner. It's imperative that we be able to help and support the public in the way it needs to be helped."

Read the full story and watch the video at WITN

July 29, 2014 — The U.S. Coast Guard transported a man Tuesday from a fishing boat in the Pamlico Sound.

Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector North Carolina in Wilmington received a call via VHF-FM radio from the operator of the 70-foot fishing boat called the Capt Ryan at about 11:20 p.m. Monday reporting an 18-year-old male crew member collapsed and experienced a seizure.

Read the full story from the Sun Journal

CONWAY, S.C. — July 21, 2014 — DHEC says eating fish high in chemicals, like mercury, can cause heart disease or other health issues.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control has fish advisories across both Carolinas including bodies of water in Horry County.

DHEC says eating fish high in chemicals, like mercury, can cause heart disease or other health issues.

DHEC suggests not eating Bowfin (Mudfish) or Largemouth Bass and recommends eating Black Crappie, Bluegill, Redear Sunfish, Blue Catfish, Channel Catfish and Warmouth only once a week.

Fishermen tell News 13 the fish on DHEC’s advisory list are common in the waters of the Waccamaw.

"I eat Crappie, Bluegill, Catfish,” said Sam Sindab.

Friday, Sindab was fishing on the Waccamaw with his granddaughter.

He says he has heard the warnings, but has fished off the Waccamaw his whole life and never experienced problems.

Read the full story at WBTW News

 

June 25, 2014 — The following was released by the United States Coast Guard:  The Coast Guard seeks applications for membership on the Commercial Fishing Safety Advisory Committee. The Commercial Fishing Safety Advisory Committee provides advice and makes recommendations to the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security on various matters relating to the safe operation of commercial fishing industry vessels.

Dates:
Applicants must submit a cover letter and resume in time to reach the Designated Federal Officer on or before July 25, 2014.

Addresses:
Applicants should submit a cover letter and resume via one of the following methods:
By Mail: Commandant (CG-CVC), Attn: Fishing Vessel Safety, U.S. Coast Guard Stop 7501, 2703 Martin Luther King Jr Avenue SE., Washington, DC 20593-7501.
By Fax: 202-372-8377.
By Email: jack.a.kemerer@uscg.mil

June 6, 2014 — Thirty-three fishermen and SMAST students and staff tried out, for the first time for many of them, fire extinguishers, flares, bailout pumps, life rafts and survival suits — all at no charge to them.

"You fish in the rain, you train in the rain," said Ed Dennehy, USCG (Ret.), director of safety training for the Massachusetts Fishing Partnership as the fishing vessel safety training carried on in the pouring rain at the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology.

Thirty-three fishermen and SMAST students and staff tried out, for the first time for many of them, fire extinguishers, flares, bailout pumps, life rafts and survival suits — all at no charge to them.

If they weren't getting wet outside they were getting wet inside, where the SMAST indoor water tank was crowded with fishermen in their own survival suits. First they learned how to put on the suits properly, then they learned how difficult it is to board a life raft from the water.

Ted Williams, marine safety director of Hercules SLR US, Inc., of New Bedford gave a lifeboat demonstration that included deploying one outside the building. It was something, he said, that most people have never seen, even in the fishing industry.

That was the idea all around. The day-long course Thursday was hands-on, so that the next time these people use a flare or a lifeboat or a bailout pump, it won't be for the first time.

It's hard to believe, but 10 years ago this training didn't exist, at least not in this form. Fishermen could pay for training, or pretty much do without it.

But Williams said the deaths of 27 fishermen in the course of three months forced a massive re-think, and the fishermen and the Coast Guard began working together because it was a matter of life and death.

Read the full story from the New Bedford Standard-Times

SEAFOODNEWS.COM — June 4, 2014 — Alerted that a crab boat was sinking quickly in a Newfoundland icefield on Sunday night, rescuers scrambled to the scene to find a group of five men calmly gathered on an ice pan, tending a fire.

"Only Newfoundlanders would take a bad situation and find a way to get comfortable," said Major Martell Thompson, a spokesman for Halifax's Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.

On Sunday afternoon, the VLL Venture, a crab-fishing boat, sprang a leak after striking ice on the way back to its home port of La Scie, N.L., a town of 900 on the island's northeastern coast.

The spring melt not only famously brings Arctic icebergs cruising into Newfoundland waters, it also leaves coastal areas clogged with ice floes. dramatic photos from the rescue show the crew of the stricken vessel surrounded by ice cover stretching to the horizon.

The National Post could not reach boat owner Lorne Fudge before press time, but in a recorded interview with Newfoundland broadcaster VOCM, he described the crew's calmness as they evacuated the foundering vessel.

"We had another quartermile to go and we started taking on water – and taking it on fast and we had to get out of the boat," he said. "No one ever panicked or nothing; everything went pretty smooth."

Only three of the five crew were able to slip into cold water-resistant survival suits before abandoning the vessel, and according to Maj. Thompson, they initially set off in an inflatable raft before trading up to an ice floe.

The first mayday call came into the Halifax-based Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre at 5:34 p.m. Newfoundland time. dispatchers soon had three vessels and three aircraft racing to the Venture's last reported location, about eight nautical miles off the coast of Cape St. John.

Searchers included two RCAF aircraft, a C-130 Hercules from Greenwood, N.S., and a CH-149 Cormorant mediumlift helicopter from Gander, NL. Two fellow fishing vessels, the Kimberly dianne and Power Legacy, cruised to the scene, as well as a Coast Guard light icebreaker, the CCGS edward Cornwallis.

The rescue also got an assist from a North Carolina-based C-130 Hercules, which was in the area on ice patrol.

The fishermen were spotted within 90 minutes of their mayday call. Search and rescue crews with the Cormorant soon had them hoisted aboard for the short hop back to La Scie.

When the five stepped back onto dry land mere hours after their fateful ice collision, "no medical services were required," said Maj. Thompson. Mr. Fudge's daughter, Lorna, first heard of her father's distress call in a phone call from her mother Violet, but got the news "fairly quick" he had been rescued.

"I actually talked to him last night before I went to bed," she said from Fort McMurray, Alta.

Although the Venture still appeared to be afloat when rescuers arrived, as of Monday night, its ultimate fate could not be confirmed.

According to Violet Fudge, her husband spent the day "trying to get things straightened out."

Newfoundland and Labrador remains a regional hot spot for small-scale fishing. In 2012, it had 6,225 registered fishing vessels smaller than 35 feet, compared to a mere 3,000 small vessels in both eastern Quebec and the Maritimes.

Fishing also regularly ranks as one of the most dangerous occupations in Canada.

A 2012 investigation by the Transportation and Safety Board found about one Canadian fisherman was killed every month.

Last month, a Cormorant helicopter rescued the fourman crew of a small sealhunting vessel that became trapped in ice off Fogo Island and faced possible crushing by an advancing iceberg.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

June 1, 2014 — New Hampshire Community Seafood has returned for its second year.

“New Hampshire Community Seafood (NHCS) is a cooperative of fishermen and consumers who’ve joined together to protect the ocean, sustain New Hampshire’s fishing industry and support the local economy,” Sarah E. VanHorn, NHCS co-founder/general manager said. “By organizing 12 of New Hampshire’s full-time commercial fishermen into this cooperative, we are able to sell shares of the fishermen’s harvest direct to New Hampshire families and restaurants throughout the state in the form of a community supported fishery (CSF) or a restaurant supported fishery (RSF).”

Read the full story from the New Hampshire Union Leader

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — June 2, 2014 — Fishing Partnership Support Services is holding two free safety-related programs for commercial fishermen in the city.

The organization will offer Basic Safety Training from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday at the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology, 706 S. Rodney French Blvd. Drill Conductor Training will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday at the New Bedford State Pier, No. 54. The instructors for both programs are certified by the Coast Guard and have years of experience at sea.

The Basic Safety Training covers a range of important actions and equipment, such as on-board firefighting; man-overboard rescues; maintenance and use of survival suits; flooding and pump operations; deployment and proper use of life rafts; flares and emergency position-indicating beacons; helicopter hoist procedures; and first aid.

Read the full story from the New Bedford Standard-Times

ROCKLAND, Maine — April 28, 2014 — Coast Guard officials said that a Good Samaritan vessel rescued a fishing boat that started to take on water Saturday night on a ledge just south of Vinalhaven.

No one was hurt during the incident, which happened at about 8 p.m., according to Joseph Puterbaugh, the officer of the day at Coast Guard Station Rockland. He did not release the names of the people or boats involved in the rescue.

“The vessel hailed the Coast Guard and told us they had run aground,” he said Sunday.

Read the full story from The Bangor Daily News