Monday, January 14, 1935
Save Four Fishermen From Watery Grave
Local Craft Goes To Aid of Disabled Trawler
Men Landed Here -- C. G. Picks Up Boat
Four Boston Italian fishermen were saved form a watery
grave Saturday afternoon through the pluckiness of the crew of the local schooner Natalie
Hammond, Capt. Frank Rose, who, with his men, rescued the
quartet from their disabled small trawler Mariana, Capt. Cosimo
Parco, 38 miles east by sough of Eastern Point, and brought them into port.
The Hammond was unable to get a
towline on the 37-foot craft, and was obliged to let her go adrift. The Coast Guard Cutter
Cayuga, Capt. Wilfred N. Derby, picked her up
at 3.15 o’clock yesterday afternoon, 22 miles east of North Truro, and towed her into
Provincetown, the nearest port. Capt. Parco said yesterday that he is all
through with fishing, the jinx having followed him the past few trips. He intends to try
for a safer and easier post ashore. He came within an ace of losing his life on the
previous trip when he fell overboard and was rescued by one of his men.
The Mariana, a small boat of 14
gross tonnage, was built at Winthrop for Tony Orlando on Boston, in 1929,
and is 37.3 feet long, 12.5 feet beam, and 4.9 feet depth. She had been fishing out of
this port up to a month ago when she changed to Boston and there Parco
recruited three Italian fishermen to make up his crew. They sailed from Boston Thursday
night, for Jeffrey’s Ledge, their usual fishing grounds, and having 1500 pounds of
mixed fish aboard after several hours work, they decided to make for the Hub market when
the crank shaft of their small engine broke and crippled the craft. They threw out the
anchor, but during Friday night, a gale sprung up, whipping a nasty sea, which caused the
frail craft to drift at the mercy of the combers. All feared for their lives, and suffered
from exposure as the wind-swept spray froze to the rigging.
With the break of dawn on Saturday morning hope came, that
a passing fisherman might see their plight and save them. During the morning, they heard
on their radio receiving apparatus, the weather forecast for the coming night which
prophesied a blizzard, and continued high winds. Parco told a reporter
that the announcement seemed a death sentence, for he could not see how his boat could
weather another such night. Then about 1 o’clock in the afternoon he espied two
sails, apparently Gloucester fishermen, approaching. He had set the American flag upside
down, in the rigging, a marine signal of a boat in distress, while all hands stood on deck
and waved their arms and hollered to attract the attention of the schooners. The first
one, sch. Laura Goulart, apparently failed to note the small
boat’s peril, and continued on her way, but the second, sch. Natalie
Hammond, Capt. Rose, was the boat and came to the rescue.
Capt. Rose did what he could to get a
tow-line to the small craft and when within 30 feet of the Mariana,
he tossed a line and the crew made it taut, but it suddenly snapped and the craft was left
once more to the mercy of the heavy seas. The skipper dared not try it again for fear of
swamping the Mariana if the sea should bring him too close to
her, and as he heard the crew of the latter shout to forget the boat and save them, he
called for volunteers to get into a dory and to the aid of the men. Every man on the Hammond
stepped up and offered to go. Capt. Rose chose Ralph
Jensen and Jack Meade, and after much difficulty, they succeeded
in launching the dory, and soon had her near enough to the Mariana
to allow the four fishermen to jump aboard. This done they made once more for the Hammond,
were helped aboard by eager hands, and taken below where hot coffee and a fisherman’s
"mug-up" were awaiting them.
The Italian fishermen were mighty thankful for they had
about given up hope of ever seeing their loved ones again. Capt. Parco
told Capt. Rose that he was all done with fishing, and would get rid of
the boat. He declared that a jinx had chased him for the past month, and that only on his
recent trip two weeks ago in the heavy gale which lashed the North Atlantic, he and his
men had been caught in the blow, during which Parco had been swept
overboard. But for the alertness of one of his crew he would have perished then and there.
The craft lost 14 tubs of trawl in that gale.
The trip back to this port was a slow one for the Hammond
for she had to fight the gale the whole way, and her 120 horsepower engine had to do extra
duty with her canvas spread. She iced up heavily, and it was not until 3 o’clock
Sunday morning that the craft arrived off Eastern Point light. The rigging had iced so
badly that it was impossible to lower the sail. Since Capt. Rose did not
dare to risk maneuvering through the harbor with his sail uncontrollable, he jogged
outside until dawn, until the crew could break off the bulk ice, and give the sail
free-play. The craft finally docked at the Pew wharf in the inner harbor at 6:30
o’clock yesterday morning. The Mariana’s crew went to
the home of Capt. Benjamin Curcuru on Western avenue, where they
telephoned Coast Guard at Base 7, requesting them to search for the craft |
