Coast Guard crews searching for 3 near Cape May, N.J.
News Release
Date: November 11, 2009
Contact: Public Affairs Det. Atlantic City
(609) 677-2204
Coast Guard crews searching for 3 near Cape May, N.J.
CAPE MAY, N.J. - The Coast Guard is searching for three people after the 44-foot fishing boat they were aboard sank 20 miles east of Cape May Wednesday.
The Coast Guard received an electronic position indicating radio beacon transmission at 7:35 p.m. from The Seatractor.
A rescue helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City, N.J., arrived on scene and found an empty life raft. They are continuing to search where the EPIRB transmission originated.
UPDATE: Coast Guard crews continue search for 3 near Cape May, N.J.
News Release
Date: November 12, 2009
Contact: Public Affairs Det. Atlantic City
(609) 677-2204
UPDATE: Coast Guard crews continue search for 3 near Cape May, N.J.
CAPE MAY, N.J. - The Coast Guard is continuing to search for three fishermen after their 44-foot fishing boat sank 20 miles east of Cape May Wednesday.
Missing is Kenneth Rose Sr., 75, Kenneth Rose Jr., 49, and Larry Forrest, 55.
The Coast Guard received an electronic position indicating radio beacon transmission at 7:35 p.m. from the fishing boat Sea Tractor.
A rescue helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City, N.J., arrived on scene and found an empty life raft with a strobe light attached.
A good Samaritan, fishing vessel Capt. Jeff, arrived on scene to assist and found a debris field with the Sea Tractor's EPIRB and a cooler.
A rescue helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, Mass., a C-130 crew from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., and the crews of the Coast Guard Cutter Block Island and Coast Guard Cutter Mako are assisting in the search.
Weather conditions are 15 to 20-foot seas, 40 to 60 knot winds and two to three miles of visibility.
my god this stuff really scares the shit out of me. I am praying for a miracle here. I know the weather today is poor to say the least. I don't know if it is because we get more information via the internet or if it is just bad this year but it seems like there has been an unusually high number of boats going down this year off of Cape May. I almost wish I was in the dark with this information I hate to read these posts. Again I am praying for some kind of miracle. God bless the men and woman of the coast guard that go into this weather to try to save a few lives.
I think She was a Fluke boat out of VA with another Father and Son. I agree Teddy, This is off the hook. I hate to hear this as My future Son in law is a scalloper. I insist on a PLB!
This always comes to mind.....Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!
Coast Guard suspends search for 3 fishermen lost off Cape May
Friday, November 13, 2009
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Joe Rose was sitting in the wheelhouse of his fishing boat at a dock in Cape May Wednesday night when he heard the familiar crackle of his VHF radio.
Like any alert fisherman, Rose's attention was piqued when he heard Coast Guard officials talking about an emergency distress signal they had just received from a boat in trouble.
When they said the name of the boat, his heart sank.
The Sea Tractor. His brother's boat.
"It was devastating. It really was," Rose, 62, said of the radio transmission.
Coast Guard officials said the Sea Tractor, a 44-foot fishing boat, sank Wednesday night in the Atlantic Ocean, 20 miles east of Cape May, in big seas and high winds. Coast Guard rescue crews spent the night and most of yesterday searching the rough, chilly waters for the three men aboard the Sea Tractor: Kenneth Rose Sr., 74; his son Kenneth Jr., 49; and crewman Larry Forrest, 55, all from North Carolina.
Late yesterday afternoon, the Coast Guard ended its search for the three men. There are no plans to resume searching this morning, when conditions are expected to be even worse, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said. Seas were topping 20 feet in the search area, with winds gusting to 55 mph yesterday.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Crystalynn Kneen said search teams covered 387 square miles in poor visibility before suspending the search shortly after 5 p.m.
The Coast Guard received a transmission from the Sea Tractor's emergency position-indicating radio beacon at 7:35 p.m. Wednesday, indicating it was in distress, Petty Officer Jonathan Lindberg said earlier yesterday. A rescue helicopter from Atlantic City arrived at the site an hour later and found an empty life raft with a strobe light attached.
Another fishing boat, the Capt. Jeff, went to the scene to help and found a debris field, including a cooler and the Sea Tractor's emergency radio beacon, Lindberg said.
The ocean had swells of between 15 and 20 feet at the time and winds were blowing between 40 and 60 mph as a nor'easter approached, Coast Guard officials reported. Visibility was down to 2 or 3 miles.
That was a far cry from weather conditions when the men started out. Joe Rose said yesterday he left the dock in Cape May last Friday with his three-man crew aboard his 87-foot fishing boat, the Susan Rose. The seas were flat and the winds nearly still. Kenneth Rose left sometime after him, but Rose said he isn't sure when because he hadn't spoken to his brother at all during that trip. "We never had any contact with him. I'm not sure where he went," Rose said. "We always used to fish right with him, right around him, but this time I didn't see him."
Rose returned to Cape May Tuesday night with his quota of 3,500 pounds of flounder. He suspects his brother was on his way back to port when the boat went down in 60 to 70 feet of water.
Joe Rose said his brother probably stayed out until the final fishing deadline because he may not have reached his quota. Under National Marine Fisheries Service regulations, all commercial boats fishing for flounder had to be back at the dock by 8 p.m. Wednesday, Rose said.
Flounder season for commercial fishermen in New Jersey opened Nov. 2 and closed Wednesday night. NMFS rules allow permit fishermen to take 3,500 pounds of flounder a week until the season ends. Then they move on to ply the waters off the coasts of other states during their designated seasons. Rose said North Carolina and Virginia were next.
The NMFS regulations, imposed nearly 15 years ago to protect against overfishing, have made fishermen take risks they wouldn't usually take, Rose said. "You've got a time limit," he said. "That's why we have to work in such rough weather now."
The Roses come from a long line of fishermen in North Carolina. Their fisherman father, Clarence, was the son of a fisherman. Clarence Rose had one daughter and seven sons -- six of whom also became fishermen, Joe Rose said. "It's hard, but it goes with the territory now, I guess," Rose said. "It was a good living up until the government got in it 10, 15 years ago,'' he said, referring to the regulations.
Charles Jones, a principal in R.W. Jones Inc., a North Carolina business that owns fishing boats, called the elder Kenneth Rose "a good fisherman." Kenneth Rose Sr., he said, worked on one of his family's boats from 1968 to 2002 before buying the Sea Tractor but that the elder fisherman owned several boats on and off over the years. He said Forrest often worked with Kenneth Rose."This is one of those tragedies," he said.
The Sea Tractor operated from the same dock in Cape May where the Lady Mary, a scallop boat that sank in March, killing six of the seven crew members, was based.
body that washed ashore on the beach at the north end of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, Nov. 21, is apparently one of three North Carolina commercial fishermen whose boat sank Wednesday night, Nov. 11, in a coastal storm off the coast of New Jersey.
On Saturday at 12:15 p.m., Alligator River and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge Law Enforcement Officer Jay Eddy received a call that a body had washed ashore on the beach at the north end of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.
A refuge visitor who was collecting seashells on the beach discovered the body.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore Ranger Bill Reynolds responded to the scene, verified the report, and contacted Eddy.
"The body was found approximately 200 yards south of the south jetty at Oregon Inlet and appeared to be a deceased white male," Eddy said.
Ensign Caleb Peacock, public affairs specialist for U.S. Coast Guard Sector North Carolina, said today that the body is apparently one of the three fishermen. A raft from their boat was found on Wednesday, Nov. 18, on Pea Island.
Kenneth Rose Jr., 49, the captain of the Sea Tractor, his 75-year-old father, Kenneth Sr., and crew member Larry Forrest, 55, were aboard the 44-foot fishing boat when it sank 20 miles east of Cape May.
Peacock said he did not know where in North Carolina the men were from.
Eddy is coordinating with the Medical Examiner's Office to positively identify the victim. Others assisting in the investigation include the Dare County Sheriff's Office, National Park Service, and the United States Coast Guard.
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