Lobsterman escapes death in storm

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A Spruce Head man escaped with his life after rowing out into violent seas during the first major storm of the season.

James Tripp, 46, said Thursday nothing prepared him for Wednesday night’s storm, despite being a lobsterman for 30 years.

He was eventually swept back to the mainland after a harrowing half-hour battle with the Atlantic in an 8-foot skiff.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Tripp said Thursday afternoon as he recounted his watery ordeal. “There’s no way I should have made it. It’s just a miracle.”

Tripp is accustomed to rugged seas, cold temperatures and close calls.

But he knew soon after leaving Tommy’s Island about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday that he made a poor decision in trying to save his brother’s expensive wooden boat, which was breaking from its mooring in Spruce Head Harbor a mile across the water from the island.

Although he had saved many boats over the years – when no one else would try – Tripp said he underestimated the force of the nor’easter and the power of the 8-foot swells that enveloped his skiff.

Tripp had rowed out a short distance to where his 42-foot lobster boat was moored off Tommy’s Island, but the storm pulled him away both times he tried to grab the bigger vessel. His skiff was quickly sucked out into the ocean, he said, and he immediately thought he would be buried at sea.

“I’m not a religious man, but I prayed,” said the father of four. “I thought about death with every wave that crashed down on me. I thought each time I saw one of those white waves coming toward me, that it would be my last. All I could see was white.

“I figured it would not be a long death,” he said, his voice still trembling with emotion as he recalled the experience. “I knew it would be cold and lonely and dark.”

Tripp said he grabbed the rope on two lobster buoys to anchor himself against the relentless waves and punishing wind. He estimated that he dragged the buoys 200 yards in his frantic effort to say alive.

Finally, after a half-hour on the water, he had drifted into an area where the east winds were blowing furiously toward the mainland. He let go of the buoys, and minutes later dragged himself up on the beach near a friend’s house.

His wife and children were hysterical, his brother was in tears, and half the town, watching the storm from the town dock, thought he had perished. The family was happily reunited after his friend gave him a ride to the town dock in his pickup truck.

Tripp said he could not sleep that night and for hours felt as though he was going to vomit. He reluctantly boarded a boat Thursday morning to assess the damage and make his way back to Tommy’s Island, where his family has a camp.

“I’m going to put that skiff on my front lawn and look at it for the next 25 years,” he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Gabe Somma said Thursday that Tripp was indeed lucky that the 50 mph winds blew him to safety because the storm was so severe that even Coast Guard boats could not get to him.

A helicopter was activated from Cape Cod, Mass., but turned back when the Coast Guard received confirmation at 11:30 p.m. that Tripp was back on shore, Somma said.

Somma said the Coast Guard tried to reach Tripp with its 47-foot heavy weather boat, but the water – just 7 to 10 feet deep – was too shallow to allow passage. The Coast Guard’s smaller search and rescue boat, a 41-foot open-cabin vessel, could not be used because of the severity of the storm, Somma said.

Although Tripp was the only person on the water and in trouble during the storm, fishing and pleasure boats up and down the Maine coast were battered by the furious winds and seas, Somma said.

He said fishermen and boaters apparently heeded the warning of meteorologists because there were no vessels in distress throughout the long, wet night, Somma said.

“Part of the problem was that it was the first storm of the season,” Somma said. “Additionally, there were still a lot of summer boats out there that were not moored properly.”

Petty Officer Josh Lemma of the Rockland station reported Thursday that several large boats were damaged or destroyed in the storm – most in or near Rockland Harbor.

“We’re still watching the cleanup effort and we’ll go from there,” Lemma said Thursday afternoon.

Lemma said 10 boats in all were either grounded or broke from their moorings in Rockland Harbor. Two boats sank, he said, including a 35-foot lobster boat and a 28- to 30-foot skiff, both owned by Rockland residents.

Two other boats slipped from their berths and smashed into the Rockland pier.

Meanwhile, a 70-foot fishing vessel broke from its mooring off Jonesport, but two Coast Guardsmen were able to board the boat and bring it to safety, according to Somma.

In Eastport, a sailboat of unknown size was grounded near the breakwater, while a 35-foot boat in Southwest Harbor went adrift and was grounded at the foot of the harbor, Somma said.

“Between 8:30 and 11:30 [p.m.] the storm was really cranking,” Somma said.