Safety

Fishermen dredge up WWI chemical agent containers, causing them to get sick and blister.

See the video from the Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

A fishing boat dredging for clams off New York's Long Island pulled up 10 canisters, including one that broke open and released an unidentified chemical that caused two crew members to blister and struggle to breathe, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.

The ESS Pursuit took the sickened crew members back to its New Bedford, Mass., port, where emergency medical workers rushed them to St. Luke's Hospital on Monday morning.

One was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital for further treatment after his condition worsened, Fire Chief Brian Faria said. The other was released in the afternoon, St. Luke's Hospital spokeswoman Joyce Brennan said.

The crew of six caught the canisters in their nets Sunday about 45 miles south of Long Island but dumped them back into the ocean when one crew member began developing blisters. It was several hours after he had been exposed to the contents of the container that had broken open, Coast Guard spokesman Jeff Hall said.

Read the complete story at CB Online.

 

 

 

 

 

A fishing boat captain from Cape Cod died while trying to rescue one of his crewmen who fell overboard off the coast of Nantucket early this morning, the Coast Guard said.

Captain John Zuzick, 53, of Harwich put on a survival suit and dove into the chilly water shortly before 5 a.m. after the crewman working on deck fell.

The crewman, Bill Silva, fell while trying to untangle some line that was caught in a propeller of the Silver Fox, a 60-foot clam dredge. The fouled line had disabled the vessel, and it had gone adrift. The two men were unable to make it back on board.

Zuzick’s wife told the Cape Cod Times that her husband had suffered a heart attack. The Times reported that Silva, who was not wearing any survival gear, survived by clinging to Zuzick for more than 30 minutes.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

One of four crew members on a Seattle-based fishing boat died Tuesday when the 75-foot vessel sank in the Gulf of Alaska.

The crewman who died suffered a head trauma while exiting the boat and was already deceased when rescuers arrived, but it's not clear if he died from the injury or hypothermia, said Dr. Phil Hess at Cordova Community Medical Center in Cordova, Alaska.

The three men and one woman were in the frigid water at least two hours before a Coast Guard helicopter rescued them, he said.'

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

An injured fisherman was plucked from the deck of a fishing vessel by the US Coast Guard using a Jayhawk rescue helicopter Sunday evening, the Coast Guard said.

The fisherman on board the fishing vessel Neves suffered a back injury and needed to be rushed to a hospital for treatment, the Coast Guard said in a statement. A video of the rescue is on the Coast Guard's website.

The Coast Guard said a Falcon jet from Air Station Cape Cod located the vessel about 115 miles east of Nantucket Island around 5 p.m. The Jayhawk arrived about two hours later, lowered a rescue swimmer to the deck, and hoisted the injured fisherman onto the chopper.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

A New Bedford-based fisherman was airlifted Sunday night to a Boston hospital, after suffering a back injury aboard the fishing vessel Neves about 115 miles east of Nantucket.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Etta Smith said a crew member suffered the back injury when he fell aboard the 71-foot fishing vessel out of New Bedford.

The crew member, who is not identified, was flown to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

Read the complete story at The South Coast Today [subscription site]

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The seas crested over 10 feet, and wind was building again past 30 knots, but scallop fishermen still worked 50 miles offshore, the names of their boats glowing bravely on an electronic plotter: Saga, Determination, Stephanie Vaughn, Lucky Danny.

On the bridge of the Coast Guard cutter Vigorous, crew members could see the names of other vessels that sped past to the west — the cargo container ships Shima and Furth, cutting tracks into and out from New Jersey's port terminals, their positions relayed by satellite to the Coast Guard's Automatic Identification System.

"Let's try to handle him from here. That way if the visibility goes down, it's no problem," said Cmdr. Brendan McPherson, the captain of the Vigorous.

He looked out at mist and showers racing between the cutter and the first fishing vessel it approached, a 93-footer from New Bedford, Mass., called Courageous, rolling in the big seas.

Read the complete story at The Courier Post Online.

 

 

 

 

 

A beachcomber spending a Saturday morning collecting seashells on a remote North Carolina beach came across a body, but it only deepened the mystery of the last hours of the fishing vessel Sea Tractor.

The body was identified as Kenneth Rose Sr., one of three crewmen missing since the Sea Tractor went down Nov. 11 during a flounder fishing trip off Cape May. The sinking took the lives of Rose Sr., 75, his son Kenneth Rose Jr., 49, both of Broad Creek, N.C., and Larry Forrest, 55, of Cape May County.

The Sea Tractor was due back to Lund’s Fisheries in Lower Township, Cape May County, on the evening of Nov. 11 as a brutal coastal storm hit the area. The crew never made port.

At first authorities thought the body found Nov. 21 on Pea Island, a remote strand on the Outer Banks, about 10 miles south of Nags Head, would provide answers. Dead bodies can do that.

Read the complete story at The Press of Atlantic City.

Six owners of federally-permitted Gloucester gillnet vessels have each adapted to today's groundfish laws, ebbing fish prices, flowing expenses, and year-round cod abundance off Gloucester by working two vessels in that fishery with just one crew, who often double-trip daily.

This May's sector management program will void that survival technique.

"I was one of the first (gillnet vessel owners) to get a second boat around 2001. The 120-day block was the original reason. Who can go unemployed four months out of the year?" questioned Phil Powell, captain and owner of approximately 43-foot-long and 45-foot-long gillnetters.

Groundfish regulations dictate every federally-licensed Gloucester gillnetter take an annual 120-day block (four month-long time out from fishing) which must be done "… in no less than seven-day increments and include a 20-day block in the spring and also a 21-day one in the summer," explained Richard Burgess, one of the vessel owners who works two sets of gillnetters within the 30- to 50-foot range with two crews.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

Effective Monday February 8, 2010 The US Coast Guard will cease transmission of the United States Long Range Aids to Navigation (LORAN-C) signal. The Coast Guard is urging all mariners to have a GPS navigation system onboard their vessel and become familiar with it prior to Feb 8. For more information contact:
Petty Officer 3rd Class Connie Terrell
AT 617-406-9011