Safety

GLOUCESTER — A lawyer representing the families of two men who died when their fishing vessel sank off Gloucester in January 2009 said yesterday that relatives are not satisfied with the findings of a US Coast Guard report attributing the sinking to a loss of stability leading to a capsize.

Matteo Russo, 36, and his father-in-law, John Orlando, 58, died when their 62-foot vessel, the Patriot, sank so quickly that neither man had time to grab a life-saving device or send out an emergency signal, according to the report, which was made public Friday.

Coast Guard Captain John Healey said Friday that underwater acoustic equipment captured “loud bangs’’ on the boat that could suggest flooding when the boat lost stability.

Read the complete story from the Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GLOUCESTER — A lawyer representing relatives of two men who died when their fishing vessel sank off the coast of Gloucester in January 2009 said today that the family is not satisfied with the findings of a Coast Guard report attributing the sinking to a loss of stability.

Matteo Russo, 36, and his father-in-law John Orlando, 58, died when their 54-foot vessel, the Patriot, sank so quickly that neither man had time to grab a life-saving device or send out an emergency signal, and that sinking occurred when the ship lost stability and capsized, according to the report, which was made public Friday.

Coast Guard Captain John Healey said Friday that underwater acoustic equipment captured a series of "loud bangs" on the Patriot in the moments leading up to the sinking, which could suggest a loss of stability due to flooding.

But Stephen Ouellette, a lawyer representing the families said this morning during a news conference said that the report is "not conclusive" and he is continuing in his investigation to examine evidence of damage to the vessel that "suggests some extreme force" such as a collision before the sinking.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The US Coast Guard has determined that the sinking of the Patriot, a 54-foot fishing vessel whose two crewmen died when it went down off the coast of Gloucester in January 2009, was caused by a sudden loss of stability that capsized the boat.

The vessel sank so quickly that the two men on board, Matteo Russo, 36, and his father-in-law, John Orlando, 58, could not retrieve any lifesaving devices, Coast Guard Captain John Healey said last night during a news conference.

He said the Coast Guard would not speculate on what exactly caused the Patriot to lose stability but noted that the men were short one crew member when the boat sank about 14 miles southeast of Gloucester, which may have caused additional problems when the trouble started.

Healey added that the Coast Guard had ruled out a possible fire on board the vessel as well as a collision. The hull was not charred or damaged in any way that would suggest either occurrence, Healey said.

Read the complete story from the Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing for scallops or groundfish in the Atlantic is more dangerous than fishing for king crabs off Alaska, says a new federal study.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has found that the highest death rates for commercial fishermen — whose occupation is one of the most dangerous in the country — are among ground fishermen and scallopers.

With safety improvements made by Alaska's crab industry in recent decades, Alaskan crab is no longer the deadliest catch, despite the image conveyed by the "Deadliest Catch" cable TV reality series, which chronicles the working lives of Alaskan crab fishermen.

From 2000 to 2009, there were 600 deaths per 100,000 ground fishermen and 425 deaths per 100,000 scallop fishermen in the Atlantic, according to the study. That compares with 260 per 100,000 in the Alaskan crab fishery.

Read the complete story from the Morning Sentinel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Orde spoke lovingly Wednesday about his dad, Anthony Orde.

"It’s hard. It’s really hard," the 29-year-old said.

Anthony Orde, 46, was one of four Digby-area men aboard the 14-metre scallop dragger R.L.J. that has disappeared without a trace in the Bay of Fundy.

An extensive air and sea search was called off Tuesday evening and the investigation has been turned over to the RCMP as a missing-persons case.

An RCMP news release Wednesday said the R.L.J. was last known to be dragging for scallops about 11 kilometres off St. Martins, N.B. The release said the boat may have sunk last Friday between 4:46 and 5:46 p.m.

There has been no contact with the vessel since then.

Read the complete story from The Chronicle Herald.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A longtime Gloucester fisherman working on the Western Venture, one of the big herring boats that is owned by Peter Mullen and was trawling the mid water of Georges Bank, has died at sea after donning diving gear and going beneath the vessel to clear a snagged trawl net, police reported Wednesday.

The dead man was identified as Duane "Charlie" Rine, 51, who lived at 112 Bass Ave. Police said Rine was a certified diver; an associate of Rine's said he was so desirous to please that his answer to the directive: "Jump," would always be, "How high?"

A blogger who was crewing on the Osprey, working in tandem with the Western Venture, published a lengthy narrative of the incident. He described the same quality — a desire to serve the team — in Rine, who was said to be a Navy veteran.

"Diving on the Western Venture under those conditions was an incredibly brave act," the blogger said, "He knew how dangerous it was and went anyway."

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Daily Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

King crab fishing in the Bering Sea is dangerous business, but contrary to what the cable television show suggests, it is not the deadliest catch.

Commercial fishing is, by almost any measure, the most dangerous profession in the United States. And the most dangerous fishing ground is the Northeast Coast, where fishermen go after groundfish — the bottom-dwelling species like flounder, sole and cod.

The Alaska Bering Sea crab fishery — the one featured on “Deadliest Catch” — is the fourth most dangerous, behind the Atlantic scallop fishery and fishing for West Coast Dungeness crabs.

Read the complete story from The New York Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 10-mile-long ribbon of red tide was spotted in New York Harbor Monday, and the U.S. Coast Guard warned swimmers and boaters to steer clear of it.

The bloom of algae – which can cause breathing problems and eye irritation – stretched from the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in the Hudson River out to Hoffman Island, off Staten Island, officials said.

"Stay away from it and anything in it," said Coast Guard spokesman Charles Rowed.

The red tide was spotted around 7 a.m. – first reported as a red or brownish sheen on the water – and was drifting out to sea, officials said.

Read the complete story from New York Daily News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't believe the Discovery Channel show, "Deadliest Catch."

The most dangerous fishing is done off New England and the Mid-Atlantic states for groundfish and scallops, not in Alaska's Bering Sea for crabs, according to a report by the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Of those fisheries for which average annual fatality rates could be calculated," two DCD researchers reported earlier this summer, "the Northeast multispecies groundfishery had the highest rate, 600 deaths per 100,000 full-time employees, followed by the Atlantic scallop fleet, including the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, 425 deaths per 100,000 full-time employees.

The Bering Sea Aleutian Island crabfishery over the same period had a death rate of 260 per 100,000 full-time employees.

The figures covered the period 2000 to 2009.

Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

VENICE, La. – August 2, 2010 – Seafood from some parts of the oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico has been declared safe to eat by the government, based in part on human smell tests. But even some Gulf fishermen are questioning whether the fish and shrimp are OK to feed to their own families.

Some are turning up their noses at the smell tests — in which inspectors sniff seafood for chemical odors — and are demanding more thorough testing to reassure the buying public about the effects of the oil and the dispersants used to fight the slick.

"If I put fish in a barrel of water and poured oil and Dove detergent over that, and mixed it up, would you eat that fish?" asked Rusty Graybill, an oysterman and shrimp and crab fisherman from Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish. "I wouldn't feed it to you or my family. I'm afraid someone's going to get sick."

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.