July 11, 2o23 — The sinking of a Gloucester fishing vessel last summer was likely caused by the failure of plating along the hull, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
The vessel Grace Marie was moving to fishing grounds on July 8, 2022, when its engine room started flooding, the NTSB said in a statement.
The seven-person crew couldn’t remove the water with the vessel’s bilge pumping system, officials said, so they abandoned ship and were rescued from a life raft by another boat.
The Grace Marie eventually sank, with a total loss of $650,000. No one was hurt.