A 38-foot pleasure craft caught fire off East Chop late Monday afternoon, sending a massive plume of black smoke high above Vineyard Sound and prompting a mass mutual aid response. All passengers were safely evacuated.
Four Fishermen Are Lost at Sea in Dragger Sinking
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
Four fishermen were lost this past Friday after their boat, the
75-foot steel dragger Lady of Grace from New Bedford, sank in Nantucket
Sound 11 miles east of Cape Pogue. A call for help was never made.
Menemsha Coast Guardsmen in a 47-foot motor lifeboat discovered the
location of the sunken vessel Sunday morning. Divers from the Southeast
Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council assisted the Menemsha crew.
Alabama Crew Member Falls to Death on Board Tall Ship Off West Chop
By MAX HART and JAMES KINSELLA
A crew member working aboard the tall ship Alabama fell to his death
on Friday morning while the ship was heading out on a day sail.
Benjamin Sutherland, 18, of Concord, was aloft in the rigging 30
feet up when he apparently slipped and plummeted to the deck below.
Emergency responders who were rushed to the boat were unable to revive
Mr. Sutherland, who was later pronounced dead at the Martha's
Vineyard Hospital.
Bad communication between the bridge and the deck contributed to the
ferry boat accident that nearly drowned a crew member a week ago. A top
inspector with the U.S. Coast Guard, Lieut. Joshua Pennington, told the
Gazette on Friday: "I blame communication overall. There was poor
communication between the crew lowering the vessel [rescue boat] and the
bridge. Typically they communicate by radio, but they weren't
using radios at the time."
Two Vineyard fishermen barely survived a boating accident south of
Noman's Land on Wednesday morning. Scott Terry, 51, a West Tisbury
artist and avid commercial rod and reel fisherman, has a black eye and a
few bruises, but is very much okay after the boat he was operating
flipped in a rogue wave. He and his crewman, 13-year-old Mitchell
Pachico of Vineyard Haven, were both in the water for a short time.
A Quincy man vacationing on Chappaquiddick was killed yesterday
afternoon after being sucked into the propeller blades of a 47-foot
white cigarette boat piloted by his best friend, William
O'Connell. Mr. O'Connell, a prominent Quincy developer, now
faces charges of operating a motorboat while under the influence of
alcohol and fleeing the scene of a boating accident.
The SS Naushon collided head-on with the freight boat Auriga in thick fog at 8:55 yesterday morning.
The two Steamship Authority vessels hit one another about one mile east of Nobska lighthouse at Woods Hole. The Coast Guard said that at the time of the collision, seas were calm and the visibility was zero.
Fourteen people were injured, 11 passengers aboard the Naushon and three crew members on the Auriga. All were taken to Falmouth Hospital, but were released later in the day.
