Four Fishermen Are Lost at Sea in Dragger Sinking

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Four fishermen were lost this past Friday after their boat, the 75-foot steel dragger Lady of Grace from New Bedford, sank in Nantucket Sound 11 miles east of Cape Pogue. A call for help was never made.

Menemsha Coast Guardsmen in a 47-foot motor lifeboat discovered the location of the sunken vessel Sunday morning. Divers from the Southeast Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council assisted the Menemsha crew.

Alabama Crew Member Falls to Death on Board Tall Ship Off West Chop

By MAX HART and JAMES KINSELLA

A crew member working aboard the tall ship Alabama fell to his death on Friday morning while the ship was heading out on a day sail.

Benjamin Sutherland, 18, of Concord, was aloft in the rigging 30 feet up when he apparently slipped and plummeted to the deck below. Emergency responders who were rushed to the boat were unable to revive Mr. Sutherland, who was later pronounced dead at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital.

Bad communication between the bridge and the deck contributed to the ferry boat accident that nearly drowned a crew member a week ago. A top inspector with the U.S. Coast Guard, Lieut. Joshua Pennington, told the Gazette on Friday: "I blame communication overall. There was poor communication between the crew lowering the vessel [rescue boat] and the bridge. Typically they communicate by radio, but they weren't using radios at the time."

Two Vineyard fishermen barely survived a boating accident south of Noman's Land on Wednesday morning. Scott Terry, 51, a West Tisbury artist and avid commercial rod and reel fisherman, has a black eye and a few bruises, but is very much okay after the boat he was operating flipped in a rogue wave. He and his crewman, 13-year-old Mitchell Pachico of Vineyard Haven, were both in the water for a short time.

A Quincy man vacationing on Chappaquiddick was killed yesterday afternoon after being sucked into the propeller blades of a 47-foot white cigarette boat piloted by his best friend, William O'Connell. Mr. O'Connell, a prominent Quincy developer, now faces charges of operating a motorboat while under the influence of alcohol and fleeing the scene of a boating accident.