SEAFOODNEWS.COM — June 4, 2014 — Alerted that a crab boat was sinking quickly in a Newfoundland icefield on Sunday night, rescuers scrambled to the scene to find a group of five men calmly gathered on an ice pan, tending a fire.
"Only Newfoundlanders would take a bad situation and find a way to get comfortable," said Major Martell Thompson, a spokesman for Halifax's Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
On Sunday afternoon, the VLL Venture, a crab-fishing boat, sprang a leak after striking ice on the way back to its home port of La Scie, N.L., a town of 900 on the island's northeastern coast.
The spring melt not only famously brings Arctic icebergs cruising into Newfoundland waters, it also leaves coastal areas clogged with ice floes. dramatic photos from the rescue show the crew of the stricken vessel surrounded by ice cover stretching to the horizon.
The National Post could not reach boat owner Lorne Fudge before press time, but in a recorded interview with Newfoundland broadcaster VOCM, he described the crew's calmness as they evacuated the foundering vessel.
"We had another quartermile to go and we started taking on water – and taking it on fast and we had to get out of the boat," he said. "No one ever panicked or nothing; everything went pretty smooth."
Only three of the five crew were able to slip into cold water-resistant survival suits before abandoning the vessel, and according to Maj. Thompson, they initially set off in an inflatable raft before trading up to an ice floe.
The first mayday call came into the Halifax-based Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre at 5:34 p.m. Newfoundland time. dispatchers soon had three vessels and three aircraft racing to the Venture's last reported location, about eight nautical miles off the coast of Cape St. John.
Searchers included two RCAF aircraft, a C-130 Hercules from Greenwood, N.S., and a CH-149 Cormorant mediumlift helicopter from Gander, NL. Two fellow fishing vessels, the Kimberly dianne and Power Legacy, cruised to the scene, as well as a Coast Guard light icebreaker, the CCGS edward Cornwallis.
The rescue also got an assist from a North Carolina-based C-130 Hercules, which was in the area on ice patrol.
The fishermen were spotted within 90 minutes of their mayday call. Search and rescue crews with the Cormorant soon had them hoisted aboard for the short hop back to La Scie.
When the five stepped back onto dry land mere hours after their fateful ice collision, "no medical services were required," said Maj. Thompson. Mr. Fudge's daughter, Lorna, first heard of her father's distress call in a phone call from her mother Violet, but got the news "fairly quick" he had been rescued.
"I actually talked to him last night before I went to bed," she said from Fort McMurray, Alta.
Although the Venture still appeared to be afloat when rescuers arrived, as of Monday night, its ultimate fate could not be confirmed.
According to Violet Fudge, her husband spent the day "trying to get things straightened out."
Newfoundland and Labrador remains a regional hot spot for small-scale fishing. In 2012, it had 6,225 registered fishing vessels smaller than 35 feet, compared to a mere 3,000 small vessels in both eastern Quebec and the Maritimes.
Fishing also regularly ranks as one of the most dangerous occupations in Canada.
A 2012 investigation by the Transportation and Safety Board found about one Canadian fisherman was killed every month.
Last month, a Cormorant helicopter rescued the fourman crew of a small sealhunting vessel that became trapped in ice off Fogo Island and faced possible crushing by an advancing iceberg.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.