macojoe
03-28-2006, 09:20 PM
40-foot scalloper, hits sand bar on Cape Cod see video here: http://www.capecodonline.com/
This is about 15 mies from my house and I fish there alot!!
Here is the story:
Drama on the beach
By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
EASTHAM - Two Maine fishermen escaped with their lives early yesterday morning after their ship ran aground in the cold, pounding surf at Coast Guard Beach.
Officials stressed they don't know why the scalloper Josephine ran aground on Coast Guard Beach, but guessed crew fatigue may have been a factor.
(Staff photos by Kevin Mingora)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Multimedia:
Video: Times report from the beach
Audio: Listen to the distress call
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The two-man crew on the Josephine, a 40-foot scalloper, left home port in Stonington, Maine, at 9:30 a.m. Sunday headed for Stage Harbor in Chatham.
They were 19 hours into the trip, with the boat sometimes steered by an automatic course device and sometimes by hand, the two men told rescue officials, when they ran up on a sandbar. The skipper was Ian Orchard, 32, of Stonington.
''He fell asleep,'' vessel owner Bert Hall, 52, guessed. ''He should have been way out there,'' he said, gesturing to the horizon line.
Hall is Orchard's stepfather. He had walked down to the beach with Coast Guard and National Park Service officials yesterday morning to survey the remains of his vessel.
There wasn't much to see.
By midmorning, hardly anything was left of the Josephine. The surf had splintered the boat into pieces - the biggest was 10 feet by 10 feet.
The smell of diesel lingered near the wreck on the Cape Cod National Seashore beach.
The National Park Service brought a front-end loader down to clean up the debris. As the boat owner, Hall was responsible for cleanup costs.
At a briefing yesterday morning, Coast Guard and other officials stressed they didn't yet know exactly what had happened, but that fatigue may have been a factor. The Coast Guard is investigating the grounding. A mandatory alcohol test turned up negative for both men. Results were still pending on a drug test.
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At 4:15 a.m. Orchard, of Stonington, Maine, issued a Mayday to the Coast Guard that included coordinates pinpointing his location. The vessel then went broadside to the 6- to 8-foot breakers and rolled completely over, officials said.
Water 38 degrees
There was no time to don survival suits. Orchard and crewman Michael Darragh, 34, of East Orland, Maine, jumped into the 38-degree water. They swam for shore, which was a few hundred feet away but was being pounded by heavy surf. Orchard told police it took him 20 minutes to reach land.
Coast Guard's Chatham station dispatched a 32-foot and a 44-foot rescue boat within 12 minutes of the distress call. A Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod was on the way an hour after the call.
Rescue personnel and police from Orleans, Truro, Wellfleet and Eastham assisted in the search for the two men, which included four-wheel-drive vehicles prowling the beach.
At 4:20 a.m., Eastham police Sgt. Robert Schnitzer's spotlight found Darragh wandering on the beach. Schnitzer said Darragh was barely able to speak from the cold. An Eastham rescue vehicle took him to Cape Cod Hospital, suffering from hypothermia.
Schnitzer then found a small pug that had been on the boat and swam to shore. His paws were bloody and he had diesel oil in his fur. Eastham rescue personnel warmed him up and took him to a 24-hour veterinary hospital in Dennis.
A Coast Guard helicopter joins the search for a missing crew member, who was later found safe.
(Staff photos by Kevin Mingora)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the next few hours, there was no sign of Orchard as rescuers combed the beach, Coast Guard boats the sea, and the helicopter searched from above. The wind was strong onshore, and the air cold.
At 8:20 a.m., rescuers did a second search of the old Coast Guard station that sits on a hill directly above where the vessel went aground. Schnitzer said he saw that a window on the front of the building was broken and yelled inside.
A few minutes later, Orchard appeared, wrapped in a curtain. He told Schnitzer he had been in the station for a few hours, had turned up the heat, fallen asleep from exhaustion, and then taken a shower to try to get warm. The former Coast Guard station is owned by the National Park Service and is used only for educational groups, who sometimes stay overnight. The building was unoccupied at the time, but the heat and hot water were still on.
Orchard was also treated for hypothermia at Cape Cod Hospital. Both men were released by midday yesterday. They declined a request for an interview and left the hospital through a back door.
No evidence of a fuel slick
Despite a slight smell of diesel fuel in the air, there was no evidence of a slick.
Park Service officials said no cleanup was necessary because whatever fuel did spill evaporated after it was broken up by the wave action.
Hall said he and his stepson had fished off Chatham for the past three or four years. He was nearly to Harwich, driving to Chatham from Maine to meet the vessel, when he received a call from his wife that the Josephine had foundered and there was a search for survivors.
Vessel owner Bert Hall of Stonington, Maine, surveys what is left of the Josephine by midmorning.
(Staff photos by Kevin Mingora)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Small scallop vessels, known as general category scallopers, are allowed 400 pounds of scallop meat a day.
With scallop prices paid to fisherman at $9 to $10 per pound, there is money to be made, and many Maine fishermen have been making the long trip to live and fish on Georges Bank and the adjacent waters off Chatham.
''There's nothing left up there,'' said Hall, of Maine scallop beds. ''It's been pounded and pounded for years.''
But there's not much left for Hall, his family and crew this year.
Crewman Larry Rotta, who was driving to Chatham with Hall, also surveyed the wreckage on the beach.
Insurance canceled
''He's out $50,000 (for the boat),'' Rotta said. He said Hall had bought the Josephine in Canada this year to fish off Cape Cod.
He said Hall had just canceled his boat insurance because he couldn't afford the payments of $1,700 a month.
Rotta said they would probably have to go back to Canada to buy another boat, and that bankruptcy was a possibility.
But Hall wasn't thinking about money yesterday.
''You can replace a boat, but you can't bring someone back from the dead,'' he said.
Doug Fraser can be reached at [email protected].
(Published: March 28, 2006)
This is about 15 mies from my house and I fish there alot!!
Here is the story:
Drama on the beach
By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
EASTHAM - Two Maine fishermen escaped with their lives early yesterday morning after their ship ran aground in the cold, pounding surf at Coast Guard Beach.
Officials stressed they don't know why the scalloper Josephine ran aground on Coast Guard Beach, but guessed crew fatigue may have been a factor.
(Staff photos by Kevin Mingora)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Multimedia:
Video: Times report from the beach
Audio: Listen to the distress call
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The two-man crew on the Josephine, a 40-foot scalloper, left home port in Stonington, Maine, at 9:30 a.m. Sunday headed for Stage Harbor in Chatham.
They were 19 hours into the trip, with the boat sometimes steered by an automatic course device and sometimes by hand, the two men told rescue officials, when they ran up on a sandbar. The skipper was Ian Orchard, 32, of Stonington.
''He fell asleep,'' vessel owner Bert Hall, 52, guessed. ''He should have been way out there,'' he said, gesturing to the horizon line.
Hall is Orchard's stepfather. He had walked down to the beach with Coast Guard and National Park Service officials yesterday morning to survey the remains of his vessel.
There wasn't much to see.
By midmorning, hardly anything was left of the Josephine. The surf had splintered the boat into pieces - the biggest was 10 feet by 10 feet.
The smell of diesel lingered near the wreck on the Cape Cod National Seashore beach.
The National Park Service brought a front-end loader down to clean up the debris. As the boat owner, Hall was responsible for cleanup costs.
At a briefing yesterday morning, Coast Guard and other officials stressed they didn't yet know exactly what had happened, but that fatigue may have been a factor. The Coast Guard is investigating the grounding. A mandatory alcohol test turned up negative for both men. Results were still pending on a drug test.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At 4:15 a.m. Orchard, of Stonington, Maine, issued a Mayday to the Coast Guard that included coordinates pinpointing his location. The vessel then went broadside to the 6- to 8-foot breakers and rolled completely over, officials said.
Water 38 degrees
There was no time to don survival suits. Orchard and crewman Michael Darragh, 34, of East Orland, Maine, jumped into the 38-degree water. They swam for shore, which was a few hundred feet away but was being pounded by heavy surf. Orchard told police it took him 20 minutes to reach land.
Coast Guard's Chatham station dispatched a 32-foot and a 44-foot rescue boat within 12 minutes of the distress call. A Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod was on the way an hour after the call.
Rescue personnel and police from Orleans, Truro, Wellfleet and Eastham assisted in the search for the two men, which included four-wheel-drive vehicles prowling the beach.
At 4:20 a.m., Eastham police Sgt. Robert Schnitzer's spotlight found Darragh wandering on the beach. Schnitzer said Darragh was barely able to speak from the cold. An Eastham rescue vehicle took him to Cape Cod Hospital, suffering from hypothermia.
Schnitzer then found a small pug that had been on the boat and swam to shore. His paws were bloody and he had diesel oil in his fur. Eastham rescue personnel warmed him up and took him to a 24-hour veterinary hospital in Dennis.
A Coast Guard helicopter joins the search for a missing crew member, who was later found safe.
(Staff photos by Kevin Mingora)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the next few hours, there was no sign of Orchard as rescuers combed the beach, Coast Guard boats the sea, and the helicopter searched from above. The wind was strong onshore, and the air cold.
At 8:20 a.m., rescuers did a second search of the old Coast Guard station that sits on a hill directly above where the vessel went aground. Schnitzer said he saw that a window on the front of the building was broken and yelled inside.
A few minutes later, Orchard appeared, wrapped in a curtain. He told Schnitzer he had been in the station for a few hours, had turned up the heat, fallen asleep from exhaustion, and then taken a shower to try to get warm. The former Coast Guard station is owned by the National Park Service and is used only for educational groups, who sometimes stay overnight. The building was unoccupied at the time, but the heat and hot water were still on.
Orchard was also treated for hypothermia at Cape Cod Hospital. Both men were released by midday yesterday. They declined a request for an interview and left the hospital through a back door.
No evidence of a fuel slick
Despite a slight smell of diesel fuel in the air, there was no evidence of a slick.
Park Service officials said no cleanup was necessary because whatever fuel did spill evaporated after it was broken up by the wave action.
Hall said he and his stepson had fished off Chatham for the past three or four years. He was nearly to Harwich, driving to Chatham from Maine to meet the vessel, when he received a call from his wife that the Josephine had foundered and there was a search for survivors.
Vessel owner Bert Hall of Stonington, Maine, surveys what is left of the Josephine by midmorning.
(Staff photos by Kevin Mingora)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Small scallop vessels, known as general category scallopers, are allowed 400 pounds of scallop meat a day.
With scallop prices paid to fisherman at $9 to $10 per pound, there is money to be made, and many Maine fishermen have been making the long trip to live and fish on Georges Bank and the adjacent waters off Chatham.
''There's nothing left up there,'' said Hall, of Maine scallop beds. ''It's been pounded and pounded for years.''
But there's not much left for Hall, his family and crew this year.
Crewman Larry Rotta, who was driving to Chatham with Hall, also surveyed the wreckage on the beach.
Insurance canceled
''He's out $50,000 (for the boat),'' Rotta said. He said Hall had bought the Josephine in Canada this year to fish off Cape Cod.
He said Hall had just canceled his boat insurance because he couldn't afford the payments of $1,700 a month.
Rotta said they would probably have to go back to Canada to buy another boat, and that bankruptcy was a possibility.
But Hall wasn't thinking about money yesterday.
''You can replace a boat, but you can't bring someone back from the dead,'' he said.
Doug Fraser can be reached at [email protected].
(Published: March 28, 2006)