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A fishing vessel sank in frigid waters off Gloucester, Massachusetts, killing seven people aboard, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Officials identified the victims on Monday after the Coast Guard suspended its search for survivors, and the service said it launched a formal investigation into the sinking. The boat, the Lily Jean, was returning to port early Friday to repair fishing gear, according to the reporting.
The Coast Guard also has not publicly identified a cause. The service said ice buildup from freezing ocean spray can cause a boat to capsize, but it did not say that was the reason in this case. The tragedy has reverberated in Gloucester, a historic commercial fishing community whose industry stretches back more than 400 years and has been chronicled in popular accounts such as “The Perfect Storm.”
In Monday’s identification, the Coast Guard named the captain as Accursio “Gus” Sanfilippo and the crewmembers as Paul Beal Sr., Paul Beal Jr., John Rousanidis, Freeman Short and Sean Therrien. Also aboard, officials said, was Jada Samitt, a fisheries observer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Gloucester residents and local fishing advocates responded quickly to speculation about what might have caused the vessel to go down.
Gloucester fisherman Al Cottone, speaking amid the uncertainty, said that leaving port requires a Coast Guard inspection decal and up-to-date safety equipment. He said the fisheries observer conducts a safety check before each outing, adding that if the observer determines the boat is not safe or lacks required safety equipment, “that observer will shut the trip down.” Cottone’s comments were offered alongside local efforts to resist suggestions that someone necessarily “did something wrong.”
Vito Giacalone, head of the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund, said sinkings like this are unfortunately not out of the ordinary. He described past marine disasters in which all hands were lost and, he said, there was no radio communication at the very last minute. In his account, that leaves families without explanations that others might quickly seek, and he argued that it is unfair for people affected by the deaths to feel they must accept that someone made a mistake that can never be confirmed.
Local workers also described the crew members as experienced. Former Lily Jean crew member Gryphon Orfanos said the men “knew how dangerous it was,” and described the boat and its captain as people who looked out for one another. Orfanos and Nate Dennen, a longtime friend of Sanfilippo, on Monday attached a stainless steel memorial cross marked “Lily Jean” to a wooden beam at the dock.
Dennen said Sanfilippo acted as a mentor, and Orfanos described his more than a year working on the Lily Jean as his first offshore fishing job. Orfanos said the experience taught him, and he said Sanfilippo was “the best guy ever.” Giacalone, meanwhile, said the Sanfilippo and Beal families are synonymous with local fishing that goes back decades, describing Sanfilippo as having followed in the footsteps of his father and saying the Beal family’s boat-building and fishing traditions include more than one generation.
The deaths included both longtime fishermen and someone new to the work at sea, officials and family members said. Jada Samitt, 22, was undertaking her first job as an observer, collecting data from the catch used for government regulations, according to the report. Samitt’s family said she was originally from Virginia and conveyed to them “how critical it was to protect the seas and fisheries,” and NOAA issued condolences to her family, the families of the six fishermen, the NOAA observer community, and others affected.
Sean Therrien, 44, was working his first season on a commercial fishing vessel, the reporting said. His partner, Becky Carp, said he joined the Lily Jean after a friend, John Rousanidis, said another crew member was needed, and Carp said Therrien had been on about a half-dozen trips and appeared to be adjusting despite complaints about the cold. She said Therrien wanted to provide for his family and was trying to supplement construction work that becomes scarce in winter, and Carp said she last spoke with him on Tuesday before he headed out.
Carp said she had hoped Therrien would take the week off, but that he felt he needed to make money. She said she learned about the sinking when alerts began appearing Friday, and she described the progression from hope to knowledge that there would be no survivors. “You always want to hold out hope that they are found,” Carp said, adding that by Saturday morning she “kind of” knew that they would not be found, and she called the moment a nightmare she wished would end.