|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The fishing vessel Mistress sank in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2019. Two of its three crew members were lost. More than seven years later, a private dive team documented a wreck believed to be the Mistress, roughly 50 feet from Turbine 1 at the Block Island Wind Farm.
That location deserves attention. In its mayday call, the crew said the vessel was “right below the Block Island Wind Farm.” A Coast Guard helicopter searched near the coordinates of the final distress signal but then abandoned a hover search after about half an hour amid poor visibility, low clouds, “windmills,” and high winds.
The team making the recent discovery used the mayday coordinates, the Coast Guard’s investigative report, and rumored accounts from mariners and divers to narrow its search. Side-scan sonar revealed wreckage just east of Turbine 1. Divers documented features and equipment that match photographs of the Mistress in the Coast Guard report. They also found what appear to be human remains among the wheelhouse debris.
The wreck was not the first indication of boat debris near the turbine. A BOEM-sponsored survey reported seeing “partial boat debris (e.g., paneling from a small boat hull)” around Turbine 1 in 2019, although it claims no footage was obtained. Why was that observation apparently never connected to the loss of the Mistress?
The new sonar image also shows a maintenance barge beside the turbine, with its legs or “spuds” planted close to the wreckage. Given the recurring maintenance activity at Turbine 1 since 2019, investigators should determine what seabed checks were performed, what operators observed, and whether earlier work disturbed the site.
Confusion over the wreck’s location may have hindered scrutiny. On Jan. 28, 2019, the Martha’s Vineyard Times reported that a private search had found the Mistress “well to the east” of the wind farm. That account was never publicly reconciled with the Coast Guard’s investigative record or the crew’s mayday call. NOAA searched for wreckage twice in 2019. Both efforts were curtailed by weather and had gaps in sonar coverage. After the second search, NOAA recommended no further investigation in the area.
At the same time, BOEM was a year into its permitting reviews for Vineyard Wind and South Fork Wind. Permitting for Revolution Wind began in March 2020, with New England Wind, Sunrise Wind, and SouthCoast Wind following in 2021.
Federal agencies were assessing how vessels and rescue crews would operate among a growing number of offshore turbines. Fishermen called for wider spacing and dedicated transit corridors. Developers favored tighter layouts to reduce seafloor cable costs and maximize development of the lease areas.
In its Massachusetts and Rhode Island Port Access Route Study, the Coast Guard recommended a uniform grid of turbines spaced one nautical mile apart. Its discussion of helicopters being able to execute turns within the grid layout assumed “using normal flight procedures in visual conditions” — crucial qualifications for anyone considering what happened on the night the Mistress sank.
BOEM later relied on that grid in its navigation and search-and-rescue assessments for offshore wind projects. But a planned route through an array cannot guarantee access in darkness, poor visibility, and high winds. Turbine 1 sits at the north end of the Block Island Wind Farm’s five-turbine line, with open water on three sides. Even there, a helicopter crew could not complete its hover search or intervene to rescue the fishermen of Mistress.
The recent discovery does not, by itself, establish that the turbine caused the sinking or prevented a rescue. It does demand answers about a search that failed to find a vessel so close to a known structure, boat debris seen on the nearby seafloor soon after, and the assumptions used to assess future rescue operations.
It also calls for a hard look at how industry priorities and political imperatives overrode the safety concerns of fishermen at every turn. Imagine how confirmation of the grave site at Turbine 1 might have given empirical credibility to fishermen’s warnings.
With new evidence provided to the Coast Guard and other authorities, the Coast Guard investigation must be reopened, and Turbine 1 secured for a proper forensic site investigation. BOEM and the Coast Guard should then revisit their search-and-rescue assessments using what this case reveals about real conditions at sea. The families of the lost fishermen —and everyone who works offshore — deserve that much.
Constance Gee, a member of Westport’s Offshore Wind Advisory Committee, is the founder of Protect Our Westport Waters (POWW!)
