March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Fishermen saved from sinking dragger

BUCKS HARBOR — Two Bucks Harbor fishermen escaped injury Monday when a 35-foot scallop dragger sank in frigid waters off Round Island in Machias Bay.

Dana Urquhart and Alfred Polk were dragging scallops on Urquhart’s boat, the Ca-Chu, when the incident occurred Monday morning. Urquhart’s wife, Ellen, said Wednesday that a log or similar object hauled from the sea bottom in the iron drags apparently struck the boat, piercing it below the waterline near its stern and propeller.

The object “punched a 3-inch-by-6-foot hole in the boat,” ripping through three planks and other timbers, Urquhart said. “She filled and sank in about 90 seconds.”

Urquhart said her husband managed to radio for help. Matthew Day of Bucks Harbor was dragging scallops nearby and immediately steered his boat, the Damn & Dirty, toward the Ca-Chu. Urquhart turned his sinking vessel in the direction of Day’s boat. They met seconds before the Ca-Chu went down.

“Matt got to them and they had just enough time to step onto his boat when their boat went down,” Urquhart said. “They never even got wet.” Except for a small portion of its bow, the Ca-Chu lay submerged in Machias Bay.

The Damn & Dirty was joined moments later by the Rebecca Ann, and its owner, Wade Day of East Machias, Matthew Day’s father. They managed to hook a line from the Rebecca Ann to the Ca-Chu and towed the submerged vessel about a mile to Randall Point on the so-called Eastside of the Port. The Ca-Chu grounded out on mud flats there at about 1 p.m.

Kim Brown, the officer in charge at the Coast Guard Station at Jonesport, said the station received a call from an employee at the BBS Lobster Co. in Bucks Harbor reporting the sinking at 10:50 a.m. “We had a boat conducting training in the vicinity and sent it over,” Brown said.

The Coast Guard vessel arrived as the Rebecca Ann was towing the Ca-Chu toward Randall Point. “We escorted them up the Machias River and checked to make sure the boat did not create an underwater hazard or leaked fuel.” No problems were reported, he said.

Urquhart returned Monday night at low tide and patched the hole with plywood. The Ca-Chu was towed Tuesday to a protective creek in Bucks Harbor where Urquhart plans to make the repairs himself.

“All the electronics were lost,” Ellen Urquhart said, “but the engine is OK.” Equipment such as the boat’s radar, Loran and radio, will have to be replaced because of damage caused by seawater, she said. Planks and timbers damaged by the loglike object also will be replaced.

Though unable to estimate the cost in damage and repairs, Ellen Urquhart said her husband expects to have the boat back in service in about two weeks.

“We were very lucky,” she said of the two men’s brush with disaster.

Brown estimated that the water temperature was 40 degrees. “It’s pretty darn cold out there right now,” said Brown, who emphasized that hypothermia would have been a problem if the Damn & Dirty had not been nearby and the men had been forced into the water.

“I guess we were fortunate to get a late Christmas gift,” Urquhart’s wife said.


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