The 72-foot fishing boat Lily Jean set off its emergency beacon about 25 miles off Cape Ann, Massachusetts, at roughly 6:50 on Friday morning. By the time the Coast Guard got there, the boat was gone.
A helicopter and a boat found a debris field and a body in water of about 40 degrees. A life raft was floating nearby, empty. The person pulled from the water was not wearing a survival suit. Seven people had been aboard, so six remained missing.
“Once we arrived on scene, the ship was no longer on the surface, and it was just the remnants of any floating debris that would come off the boat as it would sink,” said the Coast Guard’s Timothy Jones. The boat never made a Mayday call. The beacon, which signals when it hits the water, was the only alert.
A boat coming home
Jones said the crew was headed back to Gloucester with a full catch. “We understand that they might have had a casualty to their fishing gear which required them to come in to fix it before they could go back out to do more fishing,” he said.
Searchers used an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, cutters and a fixed-wing aircraft. Over about 24 hours they covered roughly 1,000 square miles. On Saturday the Coast Guard said that after consulting with on-scene commanders, it had concluded that all reasonable search efforts for the missing crew had been exhausted, and it suspended the search.
The National Weather Service put winds at about 27 mph with waves around 4 feet when the alert came. The air temperature was 12F and the water about 39F. The NOAA said a fishery observer, who collects data for government regulators, was on board.
The names of the dead man and the missing crew had not been released when the first reports came out.
Gloucester reacts
The Lily Jean was owned by a well-known member of Gloucester’s fishing community. Its captain, Gus Sanfilippo, a fifth-generation commercial fisher, appeared with his crew in a 2012 History Channel episode of Nor’Easter Men, which showed trips of up to 10 days fishing for haddock, lobster and flounder.
State Sen. Bruce Tarr, a friend of Sanfilippo, called him “one of the kindest, nicest individuals on the face of this earth” and said he was among the best in the port. Tarr said it was very hard to understand that the vessel now lay on the ocean floor, given the captain’s experience.
“This is a community that has felt this type of loss in the past,” Tarr said. Gloucester, about 35 miles northeast of Boston, inspired The Perfect Storm, the book and film about the Andrea Gail, which vanished at sea in 1991.
Al Cottone, Gloucester’s Director of Fisheries, is a commercial fisherman himself. “We share a brotherhood out there that it’s hard for some people to understand,” he said. “This one is very personal to me.”
Everett Sawyer, 55, a childhood friend of Sanfilippo, said he has known 25 people lost at sea in his decades near the Atlantic. “Things happen very quickly when you’re out on the ocean,” he said.
Gov. Maura Healey said she was “heartbroken”. In a statement she said, “Fishermen and fishing vessels are core to the history, economy and culture of Gloucester and Cape Ann, and this tragedy is felt all across the state.”
Sources
- One person dead, 6 missing after fishing boat Lily Jean sinks off Gloucester
- Search for survivors halted after Massachusetts fishing boat lost at sea
