PROVINCETOWN, R.I. — November 19, 2012 — U.S. Coast Guard vessels and state police divers worked into the night Sunday searching for the body of a fisherman about two miles off Race Point after the vessel he was on began capsizing around 11:30 a.m.
Coast Guard Station Woods Hole received a call from the lobster boat Glutton about another boat, Twin Lights, capsizing after becoming tangled in fishing gear, Chief John Harker of the Coast Guard station in Provincetown said.
Fishermen aboard the Glutton were able to rescue one crew member, Harker said. But another was still below decks on the scalloping boat when it sank, state police Trooper Todd Nolan said.
The Twin Lights is captained by Jean Frottier, 69, of Wellfleet.
Air Station Cape Cod sent a helicopter and a Falcon jet to the area to search for the man, Harker said. In addition, two Coast Guard cutters, the Spencer and the Grand Isle, and Massachusetts State Police divers assisted in the search.
After several hours of searching, the mission transformed from one of rescue into one of recovery, Nolan said Sunday afternoon. The time the man would have been in the 50-degree water and the depth where the boat sank, around 192 feet, contributed to that decision, he added.
Coast Guard cutters were still searching around 8 p.m., Coast Guard Petty Officer Robert Simpson said.
Neither Harker nor Nolan would provide the names of either the rescued fisherman or the man assumed to have gone down with the ship.
But on Sunday night, the close-knit community of MacMillan Pier boat owners was already mourning the loss of one of its own.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times