Lost at Sea Part 2

The fishermen are what have sustained this community for 200
years or more. When they're lost it really hits hard, even though
it wasn't a close personal friend or a family member, it hits the
whole community.

Over the past year three vessels have gone down in the Cobscook Bay
area - the crew of the Miss Priss survived their boat sinking …
however five others were not as lucky… Four of the men were found, but
Joseph Jones, the stern man for one of the boats, remains missing.
Russel Wright, a specialist with the marine patrol, used to fish the
waters around Lubec… for him, these losses hit especially close to
home.

(Russel Wright)
Everybody knows everybody, and of course I deal with them on a
daily basis, and I grew up with them - I'm from here… When you have
someone missing like that, it puts a lot, I put a lot into this, into
trying to locate these people.

The U.S. Coast Guard, Marine Patrol, and State Police divers have all
searched the rocky coast for the wrecks … NOAA - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -
came to the area to run sonar to see if they could locate the vessels - and possibly find the
missing crew member…

(Lt. Alan Talbot with marine patrol)
There was a huge community support for that whole effort. Right
from Senator Collins office right on down. Capt. Bob Peacock was a
pilot in the area, and was instrumental in getting them down there.

Three areas of interest were identified by NOAA - two turned out to be
nothing… a boat was found in the third spot - but strong currents
prevented crews from bringing it to the surface… the boat was never
identified. Although the wrecks were never recovered - the memories of
the men aboard them will never be lost …

It's been a great loss for the community. One of the first
vessels that went down last year was my next door neighbor's Loren
Lank, and that's how this all started.

Shelley Tinker lives in Lubec. Her husband is a fisherman -- so this
is a cause that's close to her heart... she's heading up an effort to
create a lost fishermen's memorial in Lubec.

There needs to be a place to meet and to be with friends and
family, and this would be a great spot to gather and remember and
reflect and celebrate.

A committee has been formed to begin planning and designing the
memorial… They want to build it on a plot of land near Lubec's boat
dock.

We want to have a beautiful gardens with native plantings. We
want a stone walkway. We want a statue in the middle with a compass
rose in the pavers around the bottom with a stone wall and then we
want places for names, lots and lots of names.

Engraved on the memorial would be the names of lost fishermen from
Washington County and Charlotte County… but to get the project started
the group needs funding…

We need around 150 to 180 thousand dollars to make this memorial
happen, and we've got 6 thousand so far. So, it's a start, it's a good
start, because we haven't really pursued anything it just trickles in
because the people want this to happen