January 1925
Signals of Distress After Engine Had Broke
Down
Failed to Bring Aid to Rockport Fisherman
Until Morning
To spend 24 hours in an open 25-foot long
boat, within sight of the Coast Guard station, yet not having his distress signals seen,
or his plight discovered by the many boats searching for him, was the unpleasant
experience Oker Peterson, a fisherman of Rockport, went through yesterday
and last night.
Peterson left his home to go
fishing at 6 o'clock yesterday morning, telling his wife he would be back in about two
hours. When he sought to start to return his engine would not respond to this
cranking and he anchored on 16 fathom shoal, a scant two and one half miles from the coast
guard station, which at all times was within view of him. Peterson,
working on his engine, felt no alarm because he reasoned it was impossible for him to
remain there very long without being discovered.
Meanwhile, becoming alarmed at the man's
absence, Sylvester Hanson, owner of the boat, called the Rockport Coast
Guard. Officer-in-charge George A. Josephs, ordered out his crew to
search. But they found no trace of Peterson. Out on the
fishing spot, rocked gently in a ground swell heaving with the southwest wind, Peterson
rigged a distress signal of an oar and oil jacket and waved it frantically to attract the
attention of the watch in the coast guard tower, but without success.
Then darkness came on. Peterson
placed the oars in the oarlocks and went through all of the motions of rowing a
boat. This he kept up practically all night to keep him warm.
Mr. Hanson, owner of the
boat, this morning said that he notified the coast guard at noon and claims it was 2.45
o'clock before they went out. The coast guard station says they received the report
at 1 o'clock, immediately went out and came back at 10 o'clock at night. The life
boat developed engine trouble, due to the non-circulating of water through the engine, and
she was useless.
The coast guard said that their view of the
water from the watch tower is obstructed by buildings, and that the spot where Peterson
was supposed to be was in a direct line with the station, with the Straitsmouth hotel
between then and the shoals, making it impossible to see the boat, although they cruised
around that sop at different times, they failed to see the boat.
Early last evening a call was sent to the
local coast guard and also to the Cutter Tampa, and these
reinforcements swept back and forth around the coast, but without finding signs of the
missing man.
At daybreak this morning, Hanson
ordered his other fishing boats out, and the sloop Sylvester,
after poking her nose out of Rockport harbor, sighted the crippled power boat, her
distress signals still up, and bore on Peterson and his craft. The
man was taken on board, given warm drink and conveyed to his home, suffering but little
from the effects of his night in the open.
The Rockport coast guard officials said this
morning, that they are compelled to keep their boat a mile from the station, and burdened
down by heavy clothing, it takes more that a half hour to walk that distance to get the
boat out.
Since the station was erected at Rockport,
residences have been erected on three sided of the building and in the opinion of the
crew, its use as a lookout for distressed shipping is practically useless for from the
tower, except in one direction, it is at most impossible to see any of the water line at
all.
The crew are always ready to respond to the
aid of any distressed seaman or ship, but could not understand how a man could be in the
spot Peterson claimed to have been and not one of the many ships able to
find him. |
