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January 30, 2007
Winter\'s peril
By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
Although the investigation into why a New Bedford fishing vessel sank on Friday will not be complete for a long time, it appears the 75-foot dragger Lady of Grace may have capsized under the weight of ice accumulating on the deck and rigging.
The 75-foot fishing vessel Lady of Grace was discovered Sunday submerged 36 feet underwater 11 miles north of Nantucket, after sending its last distress call Friday night. The Coast Guard ended its search for the vessel\'s four-man crew yesterday morning.
(File Photos/The Standard-Times)
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The Coast Guard ended its search for the vessel\'s four-man crew yesterday morning after conferring with the men\'s families.
Later in the day the Massachusetts State Police dive team recovered one body from the wheelhouse of the sunken vessel, but did not release the crew member\'s identity.
At a noon press conference, New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, and some in the fishing community, said that federal fishing regulations also contributed to the tragedy.
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Sea spray icing
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Icing occurs when the air temperature is below freezing and cold spray from waves adheres onto a vessel\'s exposed surfaces. Usually the wind speed is more than 15 to 18 knots per hour (about 17 to 21 mph).
In the Northeast, a winter northeaster or winds out of the north are most likely to produce icing.
The smaller the boat, the easier it is for icing weather conditions to be met. These conditions include wind speed, wave height, and air and water temperatures. Other factors are a vessel\'s freeboard (the amount of structure above the waterline), how it has been exposed to cold, handling, speed and heading with respect to waves and wind.
Icing threatens safety by raising a vessel\'s center of gravity, making the boat prone to rolling, pitching, topside flooding and capsizing. It can hamper or make useless communication, navigation and lifesaving equipment.
Crews combat icing by knocking off ice with blunt instruments such as wooden bats and mallets, and picks, shovels, spades and hoes. Salt and chemical de-icers, hot or pressurized air and steam are sometimes used. As a preventative measure, and to make it easier to remove ice, surfaces may be painted with \"ice-phobic\" coatings that repel water and ice, but these slippery substances are not suitable for walkways and must be reapplied.
Vessels caught in dangerous icing conditions should seek shelter in a harbor or downwind of a coastline. If no shelter is nearby, sea spray can be minimized by steaming downwind, or, for some ships, heading into the seas.
The federal government has set the following standards for the rate of inches of ice per accumulated per hour: Light, less than 0.3; moderate, 0.3-0.8; heavy, 0.8-1.6; extreme, more than 1.6.
Sources: Mariners Weather Log Dec. 2005, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Commercial Fisheries News/FishResearch.org
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Lang questioned the safety implications of fishery regulations that utilize a system known as Days-At-Sea, which has cut the number of fishing days to around 20 a year to help restore vastly depleted fish stocks.
\'\'This is unacceptable that fishermen are out fishing in the worst weather because of the way fishing regulations are written,\'\' Lang said.
Lost were the boat\'s captain, Antonio Barroqueiro, and crew members Mario Farinha, Rogerio Ventura and Joao Silva. The vessel, built in 1978, was owned by Santos Fishing Corp.
New England Fishery Management Council spokeswoman Pat Fiorelli said that, historically, sinkings have been the result of judgment calls by captains, or mechanical issues, not fishery regulations. She pointed to a 2005 joint study done by the Marine Policy Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the National Marine Fisheries Service that said fishery management actions after 1994 had not led to an increase in fishery accidents or sinkings.
Ice generally accumulates most heavily on the rigging and superstructure of boats when they get within 20 miles of shore because the inshore waters are colder. The boats also often have no choice but to head into the wind on the homeward voyage and waves get atomized into fine spray particles by the bow and are blown over the boat. Ice collects in heavy sheets on decks and the bridge, rigging and cables. An inch-thick 1-square-foot sheet of ice can weigh 5 pounds. That makes the boat top-heavy, and it can capsize quickly if the crew doesn\'t break the ice off with hammers and baseball bats and throw it overboard.
Retired New Bedford fisherman and fishery consultant Jim Kendall explained that, in bad weather, fishermen sometimes stayed out at sea, not fishing, to ride out the storm, rather than risk ice. But under new regulations, there are no extra days to do that and captains must sometimes risk icing up on the way back to get home so as to not lose any allotted fishing days.
Kendall believes it was ice that did in the Lady of Grace.
The search, which began Saturday morning, encompassed 6,300 square miles of Nantucket Sound and involved a Coast Guard jet and helicopter as well as three cutters and several small boats from stations in Woods Hole, Martha\'s Vineyard and Nantucket. An oil slick and a last-known position from a satellite tracking device ultimately pinpointed the location in 36 feet of water, 11 miles north of Nantucket.
State police divers yesterday found the life raft still with the boat. Kendall and fellow New Bedford fisherman Rodney Avila agreed that the life raft and the vessel\'s emergency position indicator radio beacon were probably both locked into position by ice.
National Weather Service meteorologist Neal Strauss said yesterday that the weather service broadcast warnings to mariners of heavy icing conditions in Nantucket Sound on Friday and Saturday. With water temperatures at 34 degrees, the air at 11 degrees and the wind gusting above 30 miles per hour, Strauss said the vessel could have been taking on ice at the rate of nearly an inch an hour.
According to Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Cook, one of the last transmissions from the Lady of Grace Friday was to the boat\'s owner onshore in which the crew assured him they had removed enough ice to proceed safely through Nantucket Sound to New Bedford. The vessel was also communicating with another fishing vessel, but those transmissions stopped around 10 p.m.
The boat was equipped with a satellite tracking device required by new fishing regulations. A signal from shore is bounced off a satellite and picked up by the boat, which automatically sends a position back to shore via satellite. The vessel was found close to the last satellite position at 10:46 p.m.
Kendall represents Boatracs, one of the largest satellite tracking companies in the Northeast. He said it was a Boatracs device on board the Lady of Grace, but that the signals automatically go to federal fishery enforcement agents who may not be tracking a vessel closely enough to notice that the hourly signal wasn\'t returned. Also, the Lady of Grace was nearly home and would fall under less scrutiny.
Avila said the vessel had passed a Coast Guard safety inspection Jan. 8 when it had to be towed to port because of a faulty generator. He said the crew had also participated in an emergency training course he had helped put together for New Bedford fishermen with federal grant money received after the fishing vessel Northern Edge capsized a few years ago.
The only emergency not covered, Avila said, was ice.
Both Avila and Kendall have had their scary experiences with ice. In both cases, there was little warning except the unnatural, slow deep roll of the boat from side to side.
Kendall said most ignore the rolling, thinking it is natural, but at any point the vessel can reach its tipping point and suddenly, in seconds or minutes, roll over.
\'\'We all got scared. We never expected that to happen,\'\' Avila said. \'\'It was very quick; it just happened. We were lucky it came back up.\'\'
Kendall hoped more boat owners would decide to put a panic button on the satellite device. In case of an emergency, it would alert Boatracs or other provider to call the Coast Guard or a designated contact for help.
Doug Fraser can be reached at dfraser@capecodonline.com.
(Published: January 30, 2007)
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