NEW BEDFORD – June 1, 2012 – The Coast Guard this afternoon was towing a disabled fishing vessel back to the city.
According to the Coast Guard, the crew of the Italian Princess reported at 10 p.m. Thursday night that the vessel was taking on water 32 miles southeast of Nantucket with seven people aboard.
Read the complete article from The Standard-Times.
BARNEGAT LIGHT June 1, 2012 — The Coast Guard rescued six people from a life raft Thursday after their fishing boat hit the rocks and sank along the New Jersey shore.
The 38-foot fishing vessel “Southern Comfort” ran aground while traveling through the Barnegat Light Inlet and began taking on water, sending the six scrambling onto the life raft, the Coast Guard said.
The six were checked out by emergency medical personnel but none was hospitalized, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard identified the six as the vessel’s captain, Albert G. Stork, whose boat is homeported in Forked River; Dennis Koleszar, of Forked River; Bill Sagion, of Little Egg Harbor; and three men from Pennsylvania, Gary Mertz of Northampton, Albert Kristoff of Glenshaw and John Wargofchik of Greensburg.
Two Coast Guard boats from the Barnegat Light station were dispatched after a crewmember radioed in a distress call at about 7:45 a.m.
May 26, 2012 – An injured fisherman from New Bedford was airlifted from his boat by a Coast Guard helicopter Monday, according to a news release from the Coast Guard. The 46-year-old man, who was not identified, was aboard the Osprey, a New Bedford vessel fishing 98 miles east of Cape Cod.
The command center at Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England received a call from the 98-foot fishing vessel at 3 a.m. informing them that a crewmember was hurt. The man suffered a facial injury after being hit with the vessel's gear and the Osprey asked for assistance.
"Originally it wasn't recommended to medevac the crewman because his injuries didn't seem to be severe," said Petty Officer 1st Class Jacob Page, the operations unit controller for the 1st Coast Guard District, in the release. "However, when the man's condition began to deteriorate, we decided it would be best to get him to advanced medical care for treatment."
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times.
There were a lot of questions from Cape Cod's shellfish industry after state officials revealed Wednesday that they had traced five cases of gastrointestinal illness back to vibrio bacteria in oysters eaten here last summer and fall.
John Jacob, spokesman for the state Department of Public Health, confirmed Friday that there were two cases from Dennis and three from Wellfleet. A DPH spokesman had said Wednesday that the three Wellfleet cases were traced back to the OysterFest, which serves up to 150,000 raw oysters over a two-day span in October.
But some fishermen, suppliers and restaurant owners have asked for proof, wanting to see the case histories compiled by DPH and local health departments. Others wondered how they could satisfy new rules requiring refrigeration and other methods to keep newly harvested oysters cool on the hot tidal flats and en route to market.
What they don't question is the need to keep the public safe and their commitment to taking measures to do so.
Read the complete article from The Cape Cod Times
May 9, 2012 – BOSTON — An injured New Bedford fisherman was transferred this morning from a vessel about two miles west of Block Island, R.I., to get medical treatment, the Coast Guard said.
At about 8 a.m., according to the Coast Guard, the New Bedford fishing vessel Explorer reported that a crew member had suffered a head injury caused by a wire parting. A Coast Guard boat headed out and the crew transferred him to waiting emergency medical services at Station Point Judith. From there, he was taken to South County Hospital in Rhode Island.
Read the article from the New Bedford Standard Times.
April 24, 2012 – Fishing vessel owners have a lot to be prepared for in 2013. Along with sweeping changes to NOAA's observer program, in 2010 Congress passed extensive new safety regulations as part of the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act. Some of those regulations still need to be finalized and fishermen will be invited to participate in the drafting process. Several of the regulations will become effective with the new year.
"When Congress passed the law they directed the Coast Guard to change the regulations for certain parts of the existing commercial fishing vessel safety regulations and so as a regulatory agency the Coast Guard can not enforce most parts of the law. They have to be enacted through a rule making process so that they can become a regulation and then now they can be enforced. What we have now is a kind of limbo situation between the requirements being in law and the requirements being in regulation."
That's Ken Lawrenson, the fishing vessel safety coordinator for the Coast Guard in Juneau. He explains further how the new regulations will go into effect over time.
Listen to the full story here.
April 6, 2012 – New England is expected to experience a “moderate” regional “red tide” this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists working in the Gulf of Maine to study the toxic algae that causes the bloom. The algae in the water pose no direct threat to human beings, however the toxins they produce can accumulate in filter-feeding organisms such as mussels and clams — which can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) in humans who consume them.
Under a newly developed rating system, a moderate bloom could cause the closure of shellfish beds along an estimated 126–250 miles of coastline.
The 2012 outlook is based on the quantities of the algae Alexandrium fundyense in its dormant — or cyst — state detected in Gulf of Maine sediments last fall. These data are combined with computer simulations that model a complex range of meteorological and oceanographic conditions — winds, sunlight, rainfall, tides, and currents — that impact the size of the bloom.
“Our goal over the last ten years has been to develop a system to help the shellfish industry and environmental managers better plan for the annual bloom,” says Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Don Anderson, who has worked with WHOI colleague Dennis McGillicuddy and North Carolina State Univ. (NCSU) Prof. Ruoying He to develop the computer model to help predict the intensity and location of blooms.
Scientists are unable to make a precise forecast of where and when the regional bloom will make landfall because bloom transport depends on episodic weather events and currents that cannot be predicted months in advance. Rather, the scientists use the computer model to produce a range of bloom scenarios – or an “ensemble forecast” – tracking variables like wind direction and water characteristics based on previous years’ conditions. This is similar to the system used to forecast hurricanes.
A number of factors could impact the forecast. For instance, changing characteristics of water in the Gulf of Maine can have a direct effect on the growing conditions for Alexandrium.
April 4, 2012 – SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — U.S. Coast Guard officials continued the nationwide rollout of the service’s new Rescue-21 communications system in South Portland on Wednesday, touting the state-of-the-art technology as an upgrade that will save lives.
Using a series of 10 shared and dedicated communications towers up the Maine coast — part of a larger $1 billion nationwide network of 232 such towers — Coast Guard search teams can use digital triangulation to pinpoint the broadcast points of distress calls.
“Rescue-21 adds power by providing lines of bearing from one or more shore-based towers to identify the location of distressed callers using the intersections of those lines,” said Capt. Christopher Roberge, commander of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Northern New England, during a ceremony and demonstration Wednesday. “In cases where we can bring Rescue-21 to bear, that means more defined and smaller search areas, which in turn means less time searching before we find what we’re looking for.”
Read the complete story from The Bangor Daily News.
April 2, 2012 – The Coast Guard escorted a New Bedford fishing boat back to harbor Sunday, after flooding Saturday morning overwhelmed the ship's pump, officials said.
The Shamrock began to take on water Saturday morning 65 miles away from Montauk, N.Y., after a plank in the hull cracked and started to leak, Coast Guard officials said in a press release.
A Maine-based fishing boat alerted the Coast Guard, which sent helicopter crews, a jet and two boats to make the rescue. The four-person crew managed to get the flooding under control with the help of three additional pumps and returned to New Bedford about 1 p.m. Sunday, according to the statement.
"They're headed home," said Petty Officer Dan Tankersley.
Read the story from the New Bedford Standard Times.
March 28, 2012 – For hours after their boat sank, Ken Henderson and Ed Coen treaded water in the Gulf of Mexico, talking about life and death while struggling to survive. For more than 30 hours, it worked.
Then Henderson was forced to make a decision that would save his life, but not his best friend’s.
On Tuesday, days after the fishing trip ended in tragedy, Henderson recounted the harrowing tale for The Associated Press, alternating between sorrow, guilt and laughter as he recalled the last 30 hours of a man who had been his best friend for 25 years.
The saga began Thursday around noon. They had been fishing for a few hours when Coen noticed the 30-foot Scarab was filling with water. Henderson started four bilge pumps. Water sprayed everywhere.
Coen quickly unhooked the boat from one of the many oil and gas rigs in area where they had been fishing. Henderson revved an engine, but the saltwater that had leaked in kill them quickly.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday Marine 16,’’ Henderson called over his Marine radio. He got no response.
He dialed 9-1-1 on his cellphone. There was no signal.
Suddenly, the bow went up. Henderson flew back. Coen jumped to the right, his sunglasses and cap flying off. Already wearing life jackets, the two ex-Marines grabbed extra life jackets and other floating items.
“The water was so cold it took your breath away,’’ Henderson said.
Read the full article at the Boston Globe