Safety

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

This has, in many ways, been a tragic year for Gloucester fishermen — from the January sinking of the F/V Patriot and the loss of its crew, to the loss of lobsterman Jaime Ortiz in October.

It's also been a difficult year for the U.S Coast Guard, which justifiably drew fire for its delayed response to the Patriot's demise. And it was a bit unsettling to learn that a Coast Guard plane that briefly played a role in last week's towing rescue of a stranded Gloucester-based lobster boat was on the scene because it was carrying out enforcement of federal fisheries regulations.

But the Coast Guard's efforts in leading the 77-foot Michael & Kristen to safety after it lost engine power more than 200 miles out sea last week was indeed nothing short of heroic.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

An official with the Maine Department of Marine Resources says finding the wreckage of a fishing boat that sank last March could help determine why seven fisherman and two vessels have been lost in the area in the last year.

On Monday divers from the Maine State Police, the Marine Patrol and Marine Resources found the hull of what they believe is the fishing vessel All American.

The Bangor Daily News says the boat was found upside down at the bottom of Cobscott Bay.

The All American sank on March 25. The body of one crew member was found the same day. The other remains missing.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.

The Coast Guard has reiterated its recommendation that more commercial fishing boats should be subject to regulations intended to prevent them from capsizing and sinking, a spokesman said today.

The recommendation was part of a report on the investigation into the sinking of the Costa & Corvo, which caused the death of Captain Antonio Mesquita of New Bedford on Nov. 13., 2008.

In the report, investigators recommended that stability requirements for commercial fishing boats should be applied to boats 50 feet or greater in length. Currently, the requirements only apply to boats 79 feet long or longer. The Costa & Corvo, which investigators determined had capsized, was only 71 feet long.

Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.