Two Dead, 4 Missing in NJ Fishing Boat Sinking

[Boz]

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A fishing boat sank in rough seas off New Jersey on Tuesday morning, killing at least two people and leaving four missing in the icy ocean as relatives gathered at the water's edge to pray for their safe return.

One crew member was already dead and a second was critically ill when rescuers arrived where the Lady Mary — a 71-foot scallop boat based at Cape May in southern New Jersey and owned by a North Carolina man — sank with seven people aboard about 75 miles off the coast. The second crew member died later Tuesday.

A third crew member was conscious and alert when he was plucked with the other two from the water by a helicopter. Two helicopters, an airplane and two boats swept a 225-square-mile area of the Atlantic Ocean for the remaining people.

All seven crew members were wearing cold-water survival suits, the Coast Guard said, but it was not clear how long they could hold out in the 40-degree water, with the air temperature at 33 degrees.

At the dock where the Lady Mary was based, about two dozen relatives and friends of the fishermen held hands and prayed.

"God, we pray for a miracle," said Marcia Janifer, whose sister is engaged to Roy Smith Jr., one of the men she said was missing Tuesday afternoon. She described Smith Jr. as "shy but funny."

Smith's father, Roy Smith Sr. of Bayboro, N.C., owned the boat, said Clara Burkhardt, office manager of the Cold Springs Fish and Supplies, which bought seafood from the elder Smith. He was on his way from home to Cape May by Tuesday afternoon, she said.

An hour after receiving a transmission at 7:30 a.m. from an emergency radio beacon, a Coast Guard helicopter found three crew members in the water near an empty life raft bobbing in the ocean. They were taken to a hospital, where one was pronounced dead and a second died later, the Coast Guard said.

The third rescued crew member was able to tell authorities that all seven members of the crew donned lifesaving suits "and abandoned ship" for a reason he didn't specify, said Petty Officer Andrew Kendrick.

Waves were 4 to 7 feet high when the boat sank, Kendrick said. Searching for the missing boaters were two helicopters and an airplane from Coast Guard stations in Elizabeth City, N.C., and Atlantic City, as well two boats from Cape May.

Cape May trails only Gloucester, Mass., on the East Coast in terms of tons of fish brought ashore each year, Mayor Edward Mahaney said.

Commercial fishermen all know they could be lost at sea someday, Janifer said.

"It is a known possibility," she said. "They are well aware of the danger you could get in out there."

———

Associated Press writer Samantha Henry in Trenton and Geoff Mulvihill in Cape May contributed to this report.

[onejacker]

Dear God. I know this boat. I own property ten miles from Bayboro. I know a guy that used to fish aboard it. He scalloped on her last year. If anyone finds out any more about this, please post it or pm me.

thanks pat

[Trollnheel]

Thoughts and prayers to the fishermen and their families

[welder]

Prayers to the Crew and Family.

[onejacker]

In my shock this morning, I forgot to add, my thoughts and prayers are going out the crew and their familys. Trying to contact my friend's family now to see if Willie was aboard. I have no numbers for Willie. I cannot find any updated reports on-line at this point.

[Boz]

Dear God. I know this boat. I own property ten miles from Bayboro. I know a guy that used to fish aboard it. He scalloped on her last year. If anyone finds out any more about this, please post it or pm me.

thanks pat

Not looking good, Pat; hope your friend is not among the victims.

Coast Guard scales back search for Lady Mary's missing crew members

by The Associated Press

Wednesday March 25, 2009, 2:28 PM

The Coast Guard scaled back its search today for four missing fishermen off the southern New Jersey coast as hopes faded that they would be found alive.

Two crew members of a scallop boat that sank early Tuesday died, and four others remained missing more than a day after the 71-foot Lady Mary went down in rough seas off the coast of Cape May.

Killed were brothers Roy Smith Jr. and Timothy Smith.

Missing are Frenki Credle, Frank Reyes, William Torres and Tarzan Smith.

Only one crew member, Jose Ariese, is known to have survived.

Hometowns and ages were not immediately available, but authorities say they appeared to have split their time between North Carolina and New Jersey. It also was not immediately clear whether Tarzan Smith was related to the Smith brothers.

Only a Coast Guard cutter remained active in the search this afternoon. Helicopters were called back to base, having covered 225 square miles of ocean and finding nothing.

Despite the diminished Coast Guard presence, "It's still an active search and rescue operation," Petty Officer Chris McLaughlin said.

Others were not as hopeful.

"People are still hoping for the best, but only an act of God can save them at this point," said Paul Thompson, who runs a charter fishing boat out of the same Cape May dock where the Lady Mary was based. "The only way they could still be alive is if they got up out of the water onto something. But if they had done that, the Coast Guard probably would have seen them."

While the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the cause of the sinking, the head of a North Carolina fishermen's association said foul weather quickly closed in on the boat before it went down.

Sean McKeon, executive director of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, said other scallop boat captains from his state were plying the same waters when weather conditions suddenly worsened.

"I was told the weather got real bad real fast out there yesterday," he said after speaking to several boat captains who were in the area.

The Coast Guard said there were 4- to 7-foot waves in the area at the time of the sinking. The water temperature was 40 degrees -- which one national rescue expert termed "an extreme emergency situation," and the air temperature was 33 degrees.

All seven crew members were wearing cold-water survival suits before abandoning ship Tuesday, the Coast Guard said.

But Steven L. Labov, chief of the U.S. Search and Rescue Task Force, has said expected survival time would be under six hours in 40-degree water.

[onejacker]

My friend Willie Baxter is not listed in the latest article. Kinda crazy. I should be happy, but the other men's fate is such a tough bounce.

Thanks very much for the post, Boz.

[Siggi Churchill]

They that go down to the sea in ships....

Terrible tragedy. RIP.

[2020is]

I extend my deepest sympathy and prayers to the families in this tragedy. The owner of the boat is someone I know pretty well and find to be a great guy that is well liked by everyone. He was raised on the water and his sons the same. For a dad to loose his two sons in this way saddens me beyond belief. On top of that a brother and another family member all lost with the other crew members. Seems like it is more than one man should have to bear but God's greater plan prevails and that will eventually comfort those that have lost.

[Parker21]

This is the most recent new on this, very sad. I have a friend that works on a scallop boat out of Barnegat Light.

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_updat...earch_ends.html

Two killed off Cape May are identified; search ends

By Jacqueline L. Urgo

Inquirer Staff Writer

CAPE MAY - Their family had clung to hope like a life preserver, but yesterday their fears were confirmed.

Brothers Royal "Bobo" Smith Jr. and Timothy "Timba" Smith, who split their time between homes in Cape May County and North Carolina, were identified as the rescued fishermen who died Tuesday after their 71-foot scallop boat, the Lady Mary, sank in rough seas 75 miles southeast of this Jersey Shore resort.

Their uncle Tarzan "Bernie" Smith, 59, is one of four crew members still missing and presumed dead.

The Coast Guard called off an air search yesterday for Smith, Frank Reyes, Frankie Credle, and William Torres, who worked aboard the commercial fishing boat. Two Coast Guard cutters continued to comb 225 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean where the trawler sank shortly before dawn Tuesday. Shortly before 8 p.m., the search was suspended.

The other men's ages and hometowns were not available.

"We had all hoped beyond hope and prayed that it wasn't them, but it was just not meant to be," Ray Jones, a longtime fisherman and Smith family friend, said yesterday on the dock area at the Cold Spring Fish & Supply Co. in Cape May.

Jones said Royal and Timothy Smith's father, Royal Sr., of Bayboro, N.C., was in seclusion at a home the family keeps in Cape May. He and relatives were making funeral arrangements, Jones said.

"He lost two sons and maybe a brother," Jones said of the patriarch, who owned the Lady Mary. "He doesn't really want to talk to anybody right now."

Smith Sr.'s brother Jack said kin from throughout the East Coast were gathering at the small home.

"We have a strong family. We're all pulling together to get through this," he said in a brief phone interview yesterday.

A dramatic account of the tragedy aboard the Lady Mary, captained by Royal Smith Jr., was provided yesterday by the only man found conscious when Coast Guard rescuers arrived about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Jose Luis Arias, 57, was discovered clinging to a piece of driftwood. The native of Chiapas, Mexico, recalled details of his experience in an interview in Spanish with the Associated Press.

The boat began to take on water in the pitch darkness about 5 a.m. in an area known as the Elephant's Trunk, a prime scalloping spot. The Lady Mary had left Cape May last week and was due back shortly, relatives have said.

Arias was asleep in a cabin when he was awakened by Tim Smith's yelling that the boat was sinking, he said. On the floor next to Arias, he said, lay his red Neoprene cold-water survival suit - which may have been the key to his survival in the 40-degree water.

Water was flooding the cockpit and galley, he recalled. Waves were four to seven feet, the Coast Guard said, and Arias said the Lady Mary had been hauling about 10,000 pounds of scallops.

Smith shouted, "The boat's going down! The boat's going down!" said Arias, who lives in Wildwood during the spring and summer and winters in Raleigh, N.C.

"Water in the kitchen, in the bottom. Then it sank. Five minutes, no more," Arias said.

He and Tim Smith jumped off the deck and were near each other in the water, both wearing the protective suits. They called back and forth in the darkness, he told the Associated Press.

"Tim, it's me, Jose! I'm here!"

But Arias said he soon had found that his was the only voice in darkness. At first he thought he couldn't hear because of the howling wind and the waves crashing around him.

Neither he nor Smith could hoist himself into a nearby life raft because the water had numbed them immediately, he said.

Arias said he had tried to grab on to anything he could find and eventually found the wood he desperately clung to for almost 31/2 hours.

"The only thing one is thinking in that moment is to try and survive and not to panic or become too desperate," he told the news service. "It's not possible to say I was staying calm, but I tried to control myself and tell myself I would wait for rescue, but also started to resign myself to the fact that I couldn't fight nature.

"You start to think of your family," he said. "I thought of my parents, who are still alive, who are elderly, but still alive. I thought, 'I need to see them again,' and that thought kept me going."

The widower, who has five children and four grandchildren, said he never saw any other crew members. Rescuers found Arias, Tim Smith, and Roy Smith Jr. floating near the raft.

Arias "practically jumped into the rescue basket," said Coast Guard swimmer Lake Downham, who flew the rescue mission. "He was very anxious to get into that basket."

When he asked about his fellow crew members, Arias said, he was told, "They're dead."

Arias said he had barely slept Tuesday after returning to his Wildwood home. "Bad dreams," he explained. He still plans to return to the sea, however. "It's my job."

Rescuers had clung to the hope that all of the men were wearing protective suits, as they thought Arias had told them.

"The only way they could still be alive is if they got up out of the water onto something. But if they had done that, the Coast Guard probably would have seen them," said Paul Thompson, who runs a charter fishing service from the dock where the Lady Mary was based.

Sean McKeon, executive director of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, said he had spoken to other scallop-boat captains from his state who were in the same waters when the weather suddenly turned foul. A small-craft advisory was in effect when the boat sank, according to the National Weather Service.

"I was told the weather got real bad real fast," McKeon said.

Explaining the decision to scale back the search yesterday afternoon, Rear Adm. Fred M. Rosa Jr., Coast Guard district commander, said that "time and environmental conditions are against us" finding more survivors.