A fishing vessel recently acquired by the owners of BASE Seafood Auction caught fire and burned on the Fairhaven side of the harbor early Thursday morning.
The 78-foot groundfish trawler F/V Carrabassett was in the process of being decommissioned, according to Fairhaven Harbor Master Tim Cox, who was on scene the morning of the fire working with an environmental cleanup crew. He said the fire was sparked by welders using a cutting torch to carve out the boat’s piping.
The welders called in the fire just before 7 a.m., Cox said. Thick clouds of black smoke could be seen rising over the harbor as firefighters from Fairhaven, New Bedford and Mattapoisett worked to knock down the flames using hoses and a foam fire suppressant. The fire, which at its peak had fully engulfed the cabin, was contained by about 8 a.m., Cox said.
“It could have been much worse,” he said, adding that there were six, 55-gallon drums of flammable hydraulic fluid on deck at the time of the fire.
Cox said the workers were in the process of decommissioning the vessel. Once it had been stripped of pollutants, he said, the owners had plans to sink it in the ocean — converting it into an artificial reef for sea life.
The vessel had a checkered history, changing hands and making headlines multiple times in recent years.
It was recently acquired by Cassie Canastra, director of BASE Seafood Auction, and her business partner, Charles “Butch” Payne, a luxury home builder from Montauk, New York. It is one of eight vessels and 48 fishing permits they bought at a bankruptcy auction for the assets once owned by now defunct Blue Harvest Fisheries.
Blue Harvest Fisheries, which until recently was the largest groundfish company on the East Coast, shut down and declared bankruptcy in September. Canastra and Payne bought the vessels and permits for $12 million in November.
Canastra and her family own and operate the Buyers and Sellers Exchange, also known as the BASE Seafood Auction, which is the port’s only public fish auction. About 65% of the nation’s half-billion-dollar scallop trade is funneled through BASE, she said in a 2021 interview with The Light.
The vessel was part of the fleet that once belonged to the New Bedford fishing magnate Carlos Rafael, also known as the “Codfather.” He was forced to sell his fleet after pleading guilty in 2017 to falsely labeling fish, smuggling cash, tax evasion and forging federal records. Blue Harvest bought the vessel and 11 others from Rafael in 2020 for $19.8 million.
Under Rafael’s ownership, the vessel was named “Cowboy.” Blue Harvest repainted the vessel from Rafael’s trademark sea green to their shade of royal blue and renamed it “Carrabassett.” It was refitted and launched by Blue Harvest Fisheries in 2020 — a move the company at the time said symbolized its mission of “investing in this city’s historic fishing industry.”
The vessel made headlines later in November of 2021, when, in the predawn hours, the vessel ran aground off the coast of Truro. It remained beached for five days until the tide was high enough for it to be tugged back to the port of New Bedford.
Canastra, the current owner of the vessel, could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Email Will Sennott at wsennott@newbedfordlight.org.
