When a fast-moving fire broke out Monday morning in his lobster boat, the Bottom Dollar, Jack Merrill tried his best to quell the flames while his sternman laid out their bright orange survival suits – just in case.

The fire, which may have been electrical in origin, quickly consumed the 40-foot fiberglass vessel and overwhelmed the two fishermen’s efforts.

The boat sank, still burning, two hours later about a dozen miles southeast of Mount Desert Island.

Fifteen minutes after realizing they were in trouble, Merrill and his sternman, Les Ricker, climbed into their rubber “Gumby” suits and jumped into the frigid Atlantic.

They tied the suits together, floating about eight miles from the nearest landfall – desolate Mount Desert Rock.

“It happened so fast,” Merrill said Wednesday, “especially when you’re sucking in smoke and doing everything you can to save something you care about.”

Survival suits are designed for flotation, warmth and protection from the elements. A person in good health could survive for at least 30 hours while wearing the suit, but no more than an hour and a half without it, a Coast Guard official said Wednesday.

As the lobstermen floated in the 46-degree water, they watched the Bottom Dollar, the boat that Merrill had owned since 1980, as fire consumed it.

It was a harrowing few minutes for the two Mount Desert residents, both long-time fishermen.

The radio on the Bottom Dollar had died just moments after Merrill realized that there was a fire and before he was able to place any emergency calls to the Coast Guard or to other lobstermen. However, lobstermen later reported having received word that Merrill was having engine trouble.

Despite the fire, the plunge into the ocean and the shock of the boat’s loss, Merrill said he knows he was lucky.

The survival suits had been stored in an easy-to-reach spot on the outside of the boat’s cabin, not tucked down in the engine room where some fishermen keep them. And calm weather meant that there were a lot of lobstermen around to see the clouds of smoke, visible for at least 15 miles.

“We were picked up in the water within five minutes,” Merrill said. “There was quite a lot of response from the fleet.”

Joey Wedge of Cranberry Isles, captain of the Austin Marie, was the first to reach the two bobbing men and pluck them out of the water. .

“I think I was about a mile and a half away from him,” Wedge said. “I didn’t really know where he was until I noticed some smoke … When I got within a half mile I saw that it was quite a fire. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

When Wedge approached the burning, smoky Bottom Dollar, Merrill and Ricker were obscured behind it. He circled the boat and spotted the men floating about 50 feet away from the burning boat, then helped haul them aboard.

“I was glad to see them,” Wedge said.

Once on board, Merrill stayed on the deck of the Austin Marie, watching the fire.

“I had 25 good years on that boat,” he said later. “It was pretty hard to see her go.”

Ten other lobster boats from the Cranberry Isles, Bass Harbor and Southwest Harbor swarmed around the Austin Marie and the Bottom Dollar, trying to help. The Coast Guard’s 41-foot utility boat arrived at 10:30 a.m., less than 20 minutes after they received an emergency distress call from another fishing vessel.

The Coast Guard’s five-member crew received the unusual authorization to fight the fire with sea water and a fire pump because of fears that the boat’s 100 gallons of diesel fuel would spill into the water.

Despite all efforts, it was the end of the line for the Bottom Dollar.

As the flames spread, the Bottom Dollar’s flares exploded like fireworks and the fuel tanks caught on fire.

“They did the best job they could,” said Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Gerald Hewes. “But once the fire got out of control it just burned to the water line and sank.”

Hewes noted that a majority of the Bottom Dollar’s 100 gallons of fuel burned up in the fire. The remaining amount of the refined fuel was so minimal, and the blaze occurred so far off shore, Hewes said, containment efforts were not practical or reasonable.

Merrill said that if other fishermen can glean anything from his trial by fire and water, it is the importance of being prepared and of keeping emergency equipment like the survival suits readily accessible.

“I’m going to start looking for a boat and get back as soon as I can,” he said.

“Take it to heart – things happen quickly. And things you never expect happen quickly.”