Two Beals Lobstermen Survive Sinking of Their Boat

by Nancy Beal

Josh Kelley, left, and sternman Phillip Kilton well positioned back on dry land in Beals, Maine. The pair narrowly escaped their sinking lobster boat miles off Beals Island on November 25, 2018 after following U.S. Coast Guard safety protocols. Josh Kelley photo.

The boat that sank from under Beals lobsterman Josh Kelley and his sternman last month seven miles outside of Moosepeak Light was a 42-foot Novi-style boat. Kelley purchased it in Lower Woods Hole, Nova Scotia in 2014.

Steaming at an average 7.5 knots, the 112-mile journey home took Kelley 12 and a half hours. He was accompanied by a friend, Doug Dodge Jr. of Jonesport, on what he calls “the trip of a lifetime,” and he remembers that, although it was “thick o’ fog,” the water was like a mirror.

Kelley chose the Novi boat for price, but also for stability. “They take a beating and usually come home,” he said last week. On November 25, 2018, the ocean was not like a mirror and the Overtimer did not come home. Fortunately, her crew did.

Kelley and Philip Kilton left the mooring off Hixey Head in Beals’ Alley’s Bay District and headed out Lighthouse Channel with the intention of bringing in some of the 240 traps he still had down. It was a good day on the water and, despite it being Sunday, it was the first good day after a string of stormy days. Many boats were on the ocean hauling traps and hauling them home.

Shortly before 8 a.m. and 11 miles outside of Moosepeak, the two began taking on two trawls. Each trawl of 20 four-foot double-bedroom traps with ground lines between them and buoy lines on either end. Kilton stacked and lashed the traps down as they came aboard. That accomplished, they headed inshore with the goal of grabbing similar trawls five miles closer to home.

They landed and piled two more trawls without incident. As Kilton was handling the last trap of the third string—the 100th trap of the day—Kelley walked to the stern with one of the 50-pound mushroom anchors used on each end of a trawl. He noticed that there was more water on the deck than usual. Knowing that he had pumped the bilge dry after hauling the last string, he knew “she wasn’t right.”

“Something wasn’t right”

Unlike a typical American lobster boat with a flat deck and scuppers, Novi boats are built with a dip in the deck amidships and scuppers on each side to catch water and let it escape. Additionally, the Overtimer had an open stern, a style increasingly popular with lobster fishermen because of the ease of resetting traps that have been hauled in and rebaited. Kelley realized that the seas had been building since the calm of early morning had washed water through the open stern.

The boat had three bilge pumps—one forward of the engine, one amidships, and the largest under the stern—and Kelley immediately flipped the switches all three. The pumps and the four six-inch scuppers were unable to drain the excess water, however, so he put the engine in gear and “put the throttle to her,” hoping to “throttle out” and get up on a plane as American lobster boats do. The 185 hp engine didn’t have enough power to lift the boat out of the trough, and Kelley said it “dunked her stern,” causing the stern to act like a scoop. “I told Phil to get the survival suits ready,” he said last week, reliving the tale.

The Overtimer’s survival suits were lashed with bungee cord to the ceiling of the aft end of the wheelhouse. Kelley gave credit to his uncle, Wyatt Beal, for convincing him to place them there when he had lengthened the house for a scallop shucking station. There, they were readily available, instead of stowed in the bow. Kilton said later that, if he’d had to dig them out from the forward compartment, “we probably wouldn’t have made it.”

Kilton yanked the suits down, shed his boots and climbed into one. Suited up, he began throwing overboard the few traps that were not lashed down to lessen the weight in the boat. “That’s the fastest I’ve ever handled 22 traps,” he said later.

Meanwhile, Kelley was trying to keep the boat from “turning turtle” before they could jump clear. He donned his suit, grabbed the emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) which would emit a signal trackable by the U.S. Coast Guard, and stuffed his cell phone into an inside pocket. “Ready to go?” he asked Kilton. “Yes,” replied the crewman. “Get out now!” ordered Kelley. They jumped off the starboard washboard, which by then was only six inches above the water, and swam away so they wouldn’t be hit by the pile of stacked traps if and when the boat capsized.

Grappling with a life raft

The Overtimer eventually sank by her stern and rolled onto to her starboard side. The life raft that all fishermen are required to carry in federal waters was attached to the side opposite the hauling side of the wheelhouse roof, too high and dry for its release mechanism to be activated. For a half hour, the men floated nearby but stayed clear of the boat, which was surrounded by coils of rope that had been spilled into the water when the boat rolled over. From time to time, they paddled closer to the boat, hoping to free the life raft. Kilton, who had worked hard lifting and stacking 300 traps, was spent and unable to swim. Kelley tied a line between their legs so he wouldn’t drift away.

After nearly half an hour and on their third pass toward the still floating craft, the raft came clear of the wheelhouse, but it was still attached to the boat by two lines. Neither man had a knife, so Kelley pulled his arms out of his survival suit to untie the knots. As soon as the raft was free, the men climbed in. “I knew we were good,” said Kelley. Two minutes later the Overtimer sank.

EPIRB, coast guard, dad, friends take over

As soon as he had jumped into the water, Kelley said he activated his EPIRB. To keep his arms free for swimming, he grasped the unit between his legs and clamped its string between his teeth. The little beacon went to work at once. Its signal was picked up by Coast Guard Station Jonesport, and crews there began to scramble a rescue team.

Once in the raft, Kelley began to work his phone. Service was only strong enough for texting, but he was able to reach his dad, Jay Kelley at home in Beals, and tell him that his boat had sunk but that he and crew were safely in their life raft, EPIRB in hand. The elder Kelley, who knew several coast guardsmen, telephoned coast guard headquarters in Boston, bypassing the usual links from Jonesport through Southwest Harbor and Portland, and alerted that station of his son’s predicament. The younger Kelley said it was not long before a fixed-wing aircraft [out of Cape Cod] showed up directly overhead, and a cutter was headed their way from Jonesport. Later, according to his grandfather, Marvin Kelley, it would be said that Josh Kelley “did everything right.”

Meanwhile, through text and, finally, phone, Kelley made contact with fishermen in his area. Although lacking any instruments, he was able to give them his approximate location and a scramble of lobster boats began steaming toward him. His grandfather had just gone ashore after hauling. He had gotten word from his wife, who’d been alerted by the coast guard that their grandson was in trouble, and he and the Alleys headed back out to rescue him. Radio chatter alerted Richard Smith, just three miles away in Bad Behavior, and Smith made a beeline for Kelley and Kilton and was the first to reach them and bring them home.

Kelley said he heard later about others coming to help and said he was “very impressed with the number of people who were coming.”

The only thing recovered from the Overtimer was Kilton’s lunch box, which floated up and was retrieved by another fisherman. It contained his wallet and a water-logged iPod and cell phone.

Kelley had hull insurance, but not much more. He’s not sure what the future will bring; getting back to work will partially depend on the insurance settlement. “I’ve got to find a boat,” he said last week, shaking his head over what had happened. “I can’t give up.”