Keeping Dry, Maintaining Calm - Canajan, Eh?

"Only Newfoundlanders would take a bad situation and find a way to get comfortable."
Major Martell Thompson, Halifax Joint Rescue Coordination Centre

"We had another quarter-mile to go and we started taking on water -- and taking it on fast and we had to get out of the boat."
"No one ever panicked or nothing; everything went pretty smooth."
Lorne Fudge, owner of VLL Venture

JTF Atlantic   Search crews with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax airlifted five fishermen from an ice floe in the Notre Dame Bay area on the Newfoundland coast on Sunday evening, after they abandoned their vessel when it began taking on water.

 

The VLL Venture is a crab-fishing boat. It struck ice on its way back to its home port of La Scie, Newfoundland, and sprung a leak. Bad luck, that. Newfoundlanders are a hardy lot, and fishing is a dangerous occupation out there on the high seas. Especially during the spring melt which brings Arctic icebergs floating down into Newfie oceanic territory.

Coastal  areas become clogged with ice floes. Interesting to see, but never trifling when a fishing boat comes up hard against unforgiving ice. The ice will always be harder than anything a fishing boat is comprised of. The stricken vessel was surrounded by a cover of ice that stretched to the far horizon. Plucky fishermen ply their trade in the most dangerous of situations where weather can turn on a dime and conditions become dicey.

The ship with its five-man crew was headed back to home port, a town of 900 on the northeastern coast of the island. When the collision occurred and the ship began to flounder, evacuation was the only option. Three of the five crew had the opportunity to clad themselves in cold-water-resistant survival suits before the vessel was abandoned. They set off in an inflatable raft.

And then thought they would do better up on an ice floe. From which perch they sent out a mayday call at 5:34 p.m. on Sunday night. Dispatchers at the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre swiftly had three vessels and three aircraft race to the Venture's reported location, eight nautical miles off the coast of Cape St.John.

In the search were two RCAF planes, a C-130 Hercules and a CH-149 Cormorant medium-lift helicopter from gander, Newfoundland. As well two fishing vessels cruised to the scene, as did a Coast Guard light icebreaker. Even a North Carolina-based C-130 Hercules responded to the call, while in the area on ice patrol.

JTF Atlantic  Search crews with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax airlifted five fishermen from an ice floe in the Notre Dame Bay area on the Newfoundland coast on Sunday evening, after they abandoned their vessel when it began taking on water. 

 

It took 90 minutes following the Mayday call for the fishermen to be spotted. Search and rescue with the Cormorant hoisted them aboard for the trip back to La Scie. "No medical services were required" when the five men stepped onto dry land, just hours after the collision between the ice and ship, said Major Thompson.

JTF Atlantic   Search crews with the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax airlifted five fishermen from an ice floe in the Notre Dame Bay area on the Newfoundland coast on Sunday evening, after they abandoned their vessel when it began taking on water. 

 

Their rescuers were, however, somewhat bemused and amused to view the five men on the floe awaiting rescue, warming themselves around a fire. Newfoundland and Labrador historically depended on fishing to keep families afloat, as it were, and not much has changed. It is a regionally busy spot for small-scale fishing, with 6,225 fishing vessels smaller than 35 feet registered in 2012.

This crew's vessel was damaged in a collision with an ice floe. A Cormorant helicopter rescued a four-man crew of a small sealing vessel trapped in ice off Fogo Island last month when the ship faced the possibility of being crushed by an advancing iceberg.