NEW BEDFORD — For the second time in five months, the same fishing vessel sprung a leak and sank in New Bedford Harbor.
A crane from Tucker-Roy Towing raised the Full Circle, a 40-foot quahog boat, from the waters next to State Pier around 2 p.m. after a diver had positioned straps around the hull. While sitting on the bottom, the vessel's wheelhouse was totally submerged with just its radar dome protruding above the harbor surface.
New Bedford police and fire began receiving 911 calls around 9:30 Sunday morning. But witnesses indicated that the boat might have started sinking as early as 8, said New Bedford Police Officer David Roy, a member of the Police Port Security Unit at the scene.
Police, firefighters and representatives from the Coast Guard and the Department of Environmental Protection responded to the scene Sunday morning. Firefighters deployed a 200-foot boom around the work site to contain oil leaks but there were no signs of oil or fuel in the water. "It looks like it's just a light sheen at this point," said Mike Whiteside, an environmental engineer with the DEP.
Read the complete story from The Standard-Times