The Lily Jean was heading home to Gloucester on Friday morning, January 30, when it went down about 25 miles off Cape Ann. The Coast Guard heard nothing over the radio. What it got instead, at around 6:50 a.m., was a signal from the boat’s emergency beacon, the kind that fires when it hits the water.
Crews tried to raise the 72-foot vessel and got no answer. An urgent marine information broadcast went out, and rescuers headed for the position. They found a debris field, an empty life raft and one person dead in the water. Six others believed to be aboard were missing.
The search
An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod, a small boat crew from Station Gloucester and the cutter Thunder Bay worked the area, and a fixed-wing aircraft flew over it. Water temperature was about 40 degrees. The officer coordinating the operation said freezing sea spray was building up on vessels, a hazard for rescuers and for anyone still alive in the water.
The National Weather Service put the wind at around 27mph (24 knots) with waves near 4ft, and the air at 12F (-11C). Water temperatures were about 39F (4C).
By Saturday the effort was over. The Coast Guard said crews had covered about 1,000 sq miles (2,600 sq km) across 24 hours with aircraft, cutters and small boats. After talking it through with on-scene commanders, search coordinators concluded that all reasonable efforts to find the missing crew had been exhausted.
Who was aboard
State Sen. Bruce Tarr confirmed that seven people were on board, among them an observer from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fishery observers collect data on fishing boats that the government uses when it writes regulations. The agency said it knew an observer was on the vessel.
The boat’s captain was Gus Sanfilippo, a fifth-generation commercial fisherman out of Gloucester. He and his crew appeared in a 2012 episode of the History Channel series Nor’Easter Men, filmed on Georges Bank. The crew fished for haddock, lobster and flounder, and trips could run as long as 10 days.
Tarr, a Republican and a friend of Sanfilippo’s, grew emotional describing him. “He’s a person that has a big smile, and he gives you a warm embrace when he sees you,” he said. That the vessel “now rests at the bottom of the ocean is very hard to understand”, Tarr said, given the captain’s experience.
Everett Sawyer, 55, grew up with Sanfilippo and was still taking in the news. “He was hardworking. He loved fishing,” Sawyer said. In more than five decades near the Atlantic he has known 25 people lost at sea. “Things happen very quickly when you’re out on the ocean,” he said.
Vito Giacalone, head of the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund, said the sinking hit the town hard and described Sanfilippo as a hardworking fisherman from a long-established fishing family.
A hard season to be out there
Winter makes deep-sea fishing off New England worse, with high waves, bitter cold and weather that turns without warning. Gov. Maura Healey said she was “heartbroken” and called the loss felt across the state.
Gloucester, on Cape Ann, calls itself the oldest fishing port in the country and has 400 years of history tied to the water. It is also the town behind The Perfect Storm, which grew out of the disappearance of the fishing vessel Andrea Gail in 1991.
Sources
- One person dead, 6 missing after fishing boat Lily Jean sinks off Gloucester
- 72-Foot Commercial Fishing Vessel Sinks Off Massachusetts, 1 Dead & 6 Missing
- Search for survivors halted after Massachusetts fishing boat lost at sea
Sources
- Google News – News about boat • Massachusetts – Overview
- One person dead, 6 missing after fishing boat Lily Jean sinks off …
