Sunken in Minutes, but They Survived
By David Silverstein, The Sun, Lowell, Mass.
Jun. 11–PROVINCETOWN — The seas were by no means extraordinary about five miles off Provincetown, but William Picken noticed his boat was listing.
The Chelmsford man, captain of the 45-foot clamming boat Sea Princess, was motoring from Marshfield toward Hyannis, where he and a crew member planned to do some fishing Saturday evening. The boat, which was running on auto-pilot, began acting strangely.
They found found water in the engine room — a lot of water.
That, according to the Coast Guard, is when Picken, 43, and Robert Wilson, 42, of Nantucket, started doing everything right.
As the boat took on water, Picken and Wilson used their radio to send out a distress call at 5:46 p.m., put on their survival suits, prepared their life raft, and abandoned ship, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Luke Pinneo.
A Coast Guard rescue crew launched from Provincetown at 5:55 p.m. and, within minutes, found Picken and Wilson in their raft.
Mere minutes after the initial distress call was made, nothing but a debris field
remained of their fishing boat.
The Sea Princess was below, sunk in about 200 feet of water.
Pinneo credited Picken and Wilson with helping themselves escape the harrowing incident without injury.
“These guys did all the right things, they really did,” Pinneo said. “If those guys hadn’t had their safety gear, and if those guys didn’t know how to use it as well as they did, this may not have turned out as fortunate for them.”
No one was home at Picken’s North Chelmsford house last night. He could not be reached for comment.
Pinneo also credited the men for having a safety plan in place in the event of an emergency.
An investigation into the incident will be conducted, Pinneo said, but as of now it does not appear the boat poses any environmental or navigational hazards.
“These guys had the foresight to say, ‘What if we get into trouble?’ They knew what to do and they had the gear to implement a safety plan,” Pinneo said. “It worked for them because they’re back at home. They’re back on dry land.”
Staff writer Robert Mills contributed to this report.
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