The Trawlermen

By Clarence Vautier

The fishermen who ply their trade on the Atlantic Ocean can tell thousands of tales of daring rescue and tragic loss of life. In The Trawlermen, Clarence Vautier explores the lives of some of Atlantic Canada’s best-known sea captains. He traces the history of these men and their stalwart vessels while highlighting their more heroic—and dangerous—exploits on the high seas.

Featuring

Charlie Prior of Pass Island, Newfoundland, who lost his life aboard the Senator Penny in 1961

The HMCS Arleux, which was destroyed by a mysterious explosion outside Whitehead, Nova Scotia, in 1948

Captain Archie Bond of Burnt Islands, Newfoundland, and his final voyage aboard the Straights Pride II in 1990

Captain Anson Conrad of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and his brush with death on the Cape D’Or II in 1980

Captain James Green of Newfoundland, who was awarded the Star of Courage Award for his role in rescuing the crew of the ill-fated Fame V in 1982

The life and times of Captain Morris Nowe of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Captain Joseph Dominix of Belleoram, Newfoundland, and his escape from the doomed trawler Gulf Gull in 1972

. . . and much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Jun 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781771175579

Clarence Vautier

Clarence Vautier Jr. was born in 1972 in La Poile, Newfoundland. He moved away to attend high school, and after high school he fished with his father, Clarence Sr., and his brother Raymond for a short time. Upon completion of school at the Nautical Institute of Nova Scotia in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, Clarence obtained employment with Biorex Atlantic Inc., and he took many voyages on fishing vessels on the east coast of Canada. In 1994, he enrolled at the Institute of Fisheries and Marine Technology at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, where he studied navigation. He later went to work as a deck officer on the Great Lakes, first for P & H Shipping, then for Algoma Central Marine, where he remains today. Clarence Vautier currently resides in St. John’s with his wife, Marina, and their son, Brandon Daniel.

Book preview

The Trawlermen

CLARENCE VAUTIER

Flanker Press Limited

St. John’s

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Vautier, Clarence, author, 1972-

Includes index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77117-556-2 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-77117-557-9 (epub).--

ISBN 978-1-77117-558-6 (kindle).--ISBN 978-1-77117-559-3 (pdf)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada.

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© 2017 by Clarence Vautier

All Rights Reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

Printed in Canada

Cover Design by Graham Blair

Flanker Press Ltd.

PO Box 2522, Station C

St. John’s, NL

Canada

Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Contents

Mishap on the Senator Penny

Explosion on the Arleux

History of the Rupert Brand Fleet

History of the Sheila Patricia

The Life and Times of Archie Bond

The Life and Times of Anson Conrad

The Life and Times of James Green

The Life and Times of Joseph Dominix

The Life and Times of Morris Nowe

The Life and Times of Orlando Lace Sr. and Orlando Lace Jr.

The Life and Times of Tom Dodge

Sinking of the Red Diamond VII

Mishap on the Red Diamond II

Wreck of the Burwolf

Sinking of the Cape Aspy

Wreck of the Cape Brule

History of the Mary Priscilla

Wreck of the Mother Ann

Loss of the Myers III

Wreck of the Pennyfair

The Life and Times of Robert Allen

Wreck of the Zaandam

Wreck of the Zagreb

Wreck of the Zion

Tragedy Aboard the Blue Surf

Index

Mishap on the Senator Penny

In the late 1940s, the otter trawl fleet was starting to grow in Newfoundland. One of the firms that helped pioneer this type of fishery was John Penny and Sons in Ramea. John Penny and Sons had its first trawler built in the 1950s, and in 1959 the owners decided to build another. They placed their order at the W. C. McKay shipyard in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and the MV Senator Penny was launched in late 1959. She was then towed to Lunenburg and fitted out at the Lunenburg Foundry.

The MV Senator Penny. Author photo.

Once the motor was installed and all the equipment installed and rigged, the trawler departed Lunenburg for Ramea, Newfoundland. On February 6, 1960, the Senator Penny departed Ramea to proceed to Muddy Hole, Newfoundland, to pick up some of her crew, and then on to Fortune, Newfoundland, for the rest. The crew for the maiden voyage were as follows:

Albert Joyce, Captain (Burin Bay Arm, NL)

Sandy Thornhill, Mate (Fortune, NL)

Gilbert Farewell, Bosun (Burin, NL)

Lionel Oven, Cook (Saint Pierre) (Burin, NL)

John Douglas (Fortune, NL)

George Hackett (English Harbour East, NL)

Gerald Fudge (Muddy Hole, NL)

Charlie Evans (English Harbour East, NL)

Tom Scott, Engineer (Ramea, NL)

Joe Marshall, Second Engineer (Garnish, NL)

Sid Evans (English Harbour East, NL)

Alex Follett (Grand Beach, NL)

Shortly after leaving Fortune, the crew went on deck to start making up the trawl as Captain Joyce set course for the Grand Banks. Once they arrived on the Grand Banks, the Senator Penny and her crew started fishing.

A little over a week later, the Senator Penny was heavily laden with haddock, and Captain Joyce set course for Ramea. They arrived on February 16, 1960, with some 200,000 pounds of haddock.

The Senator Penny was successful on her first trip and continued with the same success throughout her career. As noted above, oftentimes the crews were from other ports along the coast, and the trawler would sometimes stop and pick them up.

One of the crew members who joined the Senator Penny from another community was a young fisherman named Charlie Prior of Grand Bank, Newfoundland. Charlie came from a family of seafarers and had family who worked on otter trawlers as well. Charlie, like a lot of fishermen, joined the trawler fleet when he was very young. His first trawler was the MV Gaultois, a 102-foot wooden side trawler owned by Gaultois Fisheries of Gaultois, Newfoundland.

Gaultois being the home port of the trawler meant that Charlie was spending a lot of time in the community. With the new fish plant and the new trawlers, the community became very busy.

Around the same time, a young lady named Betty Rideout from the community of Pass Island had also gone to Gaultois for work and found employment with the local merchant, Thomas L. Garland Ltd.

Shortly after Betty relocated to Gaultois, she met Charlie Prior and a romance began. The couple dated for a while, and then in December 1958 they married in Betty’s hometown of Pass Island. After their wedding they moved to Grand Bank, where most of Charlie’s family lived.

In November 1960, the couple welcomed their first child, a boy named Gary. The next year, in the summer of 1961, Charlie and Betty relocated from Grand Bank to Pass Island.

During this time, Charlie decided to change trawlers and found a berth on the Senator Penny as mate.

Charlie and Betty Prior on their wedding day. Courtesy of Marilyn Rideout-Rimsell.

Once they were settled in their home on Pass Island, Charlie returned to Ramea and joined the crew of the Senator Penny for another trip. While berthed at the dock in Ramea, Charlie took advantage of the time in port and decided to order a crib for his son at the Penny store. He would pick up the crib on the return trip and take it back home with him.

Once the Senator Penny departed Ramea, Captain Rossiter set course for Sydney, Nova Scotia, where the trawler berthed at the Marine Railway dock for annual refit.

After several weeks on dry dock, and once the refit was complete, the Senator Penny was launched and resupplied for a routine fishing trip to the fishing grounds. In early October, the trawler departed Sydney for the fishing grounds of Burgeo Bank. The crew were as follows:

Stan Rossiter, Captain (Ramea, NL)

Charles Prior, Mate (Pass Island, NL)

Thomas Scott, Chief Engineer (Ramea, NL)

Eric Bowles, Second Engineer (Ramea, NL)

Gerald Fudge, Bosun (Ramea, NL)

Edgar Warren, Deckhand (Ramea, NL)

Charlie Young, Deckhand (Ramea, NL)

John Ben Poole, Deckhand (McCallum, NL)

John Ben Strowbridge, Deckhand (Jersey Harbour, NL)

On the morning of October 5, 1961, the Senator Penny was conducting a regular day of fishing on Burgeo Bank. The winds were fresh with a moderate sea running, but the crewmen were used to this.

Early that evening, the crew were preparing to retrieve the trawl once more for the day. Around 7:00 p.m., they were having trouble getting the net back on board. Mate Charlie Prior came down from the wheelhouse to offer a helping hand to his shipmates on deck.

The crew rigged a strap to put around the net in hopes that they could drag it on board, but when the strain came on, the makeshift strap broke. The trawl gear started to go back over the side again, and crew member Charlie Prior got entangled in the rigging and was dragged over the side with it.

The crew saw him in the water, but the trouble they were experiencing with the trawl was causing great difficulty for them. Eventually they cut the remaining warp and let the trawl go. They remained in the area for about six hours hoping to find their shipmate, but they had no luck. Captain Rossiter made a call to the owners and set course for Ramea, where they arrived early the next morning.

The news was passed on to his wife on Pass Island. As for the crib Charlie had ordered, when it arrived, the store forwarded it on to his wife back home.

Betty remained on Pass Island and relocated with the resettlement program in 1974. On January 24, 2014, Gary’s daughter gave birth to a baby girl, named Charlie Anne Waterman in memory of her grandfather.

Gary Prior and his granddaughter, Charlie Anne Waterman. Courtesy of Katie Barnes-Prior.

As for the Senator Penny, she was later converted to a ferry for Ramea residents, and when she was retired from the ferry service she was beached in Fortune Bay, where she remains today.

The Senator Penny beached after years of service.

Courtesy of Jack Keeping.

Explosion on the Arleux

During the First World War, the shipyards in Canada were busy building many different types of vessels in demand for different trades in Canada and around the world.

One shipyard that was busy in Canada during this time was Canadian Vickers in Montreal, Quebec. One contract the shipyard was awarded was to build several Battle Class trawlers to form part of the Canadian naval response to the threat of German U-boats in the western Atlantic.

The MV Arleux at Digby, Nova Scotia. Courtesy of Shipsearch Marine.

The purpose of this class of trawler was to aid anti-submarine patrols off Canada’s east coast. They were designed from the British North Sea trawler, since the standard Canadian fishing vessels were considered unsuitable for patrol work.

The resulting design carried the following dimensions: 130' x 25'  and a draft of some 13'. They cruised at a speed of ten knots. A gun was mounted forward, and they carried a small number of depth charges.

One of these trawlers was the HMCS Arleux, which was commissioned on June 5, 1918, and a little while later transferred to the minister of Marine and Fisheries. It remained a naval vessel for several more years.

While the HMCS Arleux served as a fisheries patrol vessel and for research, she was often under the command of Captain W. J. Milne. In 1923, she took part in a patrol of the International Fishermen’s Race of Halifax. Several years later, she took part in tidal work in the Strait of Belle Isle area off Newfoundland.

The MV Arleux also served in towing vessels that encountered trouble, and she once served as a mother ship to the east coast’s winter haddock fishing fleet. In 1939, with the start of World War II, the Arleux was reacquired by the Royal Canadian Navy and recommissioned in September 1939. She was then used as a gate vessel and designated as Gate Vessel 16 in Halifax in 1940.

On February 15, 1946, she was sold to Atlantic Trawlers Ltd. of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and taken to Dartmouth Marine Centre. There she was overhauled and rigged for the otter trawl operation, which was a fairly new industry to the east coast of Canada.

Once the overhaul was complete, she was placed under the command of Captain Ed Denty. On August 18, 1948, the Arleux departed Halifax for the fishing grounds of Saint Pierre Bank, some 300 miles to the east. Her crew were as follows:

Edward Denty, Captain (Beechville, NS)

Alf Nielsin, Mate (Spryfield, NS)

Gunvald Fosen, Chief Engineer (Norway)

Charlie Sheaves, Second Engineer (Dartmouth, NS)

Samuel Fox, Cook (Halifax, NS)

Garfield Drake, Able Seaman (Lolly Cove, NL)

William Quann, Able Seaman (Fortune Bay, NL)

Earl Rice, Able Seaman (Canso, NS)

William Phillips, Able Seaman (Fortune Bay, NL)

Charles Hancock, Able Seaman (Fortune Bay, NL)

Wil­liam Grant, Ordinary Seaman (Fortune, NL)

Frank Wagg, Able Seaman (Herring Cove, NS)

Randell Pink, Able Seaman (Rose Blanche, NL)

James Whalen (Burin, NL)

Cyril Mills, Able Seaman (Burin, NL)

Daniel Doody, Able Seaman (Burin, NL)

Fred Denty, Able Seaman (Beechville, NS)

Andrew Dame, Able Seaman (Halifax, NS)

Morris Stoddard, Messman (Jeddore, NS)

George Tibbitts, Fireman (Ripples, NB)

Robert Smith, Fireman (Halifax, NS)

Perry Banbury (Fortune, NL)

On the morning of August 19, 1948, the Arleux was passing Whitehead, Nova Scotia, ten miles east of Halifax, when a sudden explosion rocked the trawler. The force from the explosion ripped open the underwater portion of the hull, and before long the trawler started to take on water and began to sink.

The captain and crew prepared the lifeboats and abandoned the trawler as fast as they could. Several minutes later, the Arleux slipped beneath the waves and out of sight.

Now the twenty-three crew members were left in the lifeboats. Everyone except the engineer was unharmed. He suffered burns on his face from the explosion.

Once the crew were situated in the lifeboats, they set course for the nearest land and made landfall at Whitehead. From there they were transported back to Halifax and to their respective homes.

As for the Arleux, what caused the explosion is not known. Some say it was a mine, but at first they thought it might have been a boiler that exploded. The exact cause was not determined.

History of the Rupert Brand Fleet

In the beginning, the fishery on the east coast of Canada was nothing more than several hooks attached to a line known as handlines. In the late 1880s came the introduction of trawl lines, also referred to as the hook-and-line fishery, which consisted of more hooks and longer lines.

In the early 1900s came the introduction of otter trawlers, which consisted of large steel vessels, towing nets behind them which were kept open by two huge doors. The trawler operations were slow at first and only operated from ports in Nova Scotia.

One of the more frequented ports the trawlers operated from was the fishing community of Canso, Nova Scotia. Canso, a well-sheltered harbour close to the fishing grounds, made the port a priority for vessels and fishermen.

In 1905, a dogfish reduction plant was opened in Canso to help with dogfish overpopulation, and later the business firms of Maritime Fish Corp. Ltd. and A. N. Whitman and Son Ltd. started a fish business in the town.

The business continued in Canso, and later a local merchant named Ron Jamieson operated a fish plant in Canso as well. The fish plant was supplied by the local fishing fleet and sometimes by fishing boats from other ports. Mr. Jamieson operated the plant until the early 1950s, and it was sold to BC Packers in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, on October 16, 1951.

BC Packers was one of the largest integrated fishing companies in the world. It had interests in British Columbia, Alaska and other parts of the USA, and South America. It had several well-known brand names in the marketplace.

When BC Packers first came to the east coast and Canso, it needed trawlers, but they were not always easy to acquire. The shipyards in Canada had only started building trawlers several years before. To find vessels to supply the Canso plant, the company turned to the United States to purchase used trawlers.

Canso in its early years of operation. Author photo.

They were in luck and bought the MV Neptune, a steel-sided trawler which was built in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1936 and operated out of the United States. The Neptune operated out of Canso until the 1950s, when she was sold to Burgeo Fish Industries Ltd. and renamed MV Neptune VI.

The next trawler the company acquired was the MV Boston Swallow, a side trawler built in 1949 at the shipyard of Richards Ironworks Ltd. in Lowestoft, England. The trawler measured 102.3' x 22.1' x 10.3'. She operated out of England until 1951, when she was sold to BC Packers and renamed the MV Rupert Brand. The trawler first arrived in Canso on February 3, 1952, and was placed under the command of Captain Albert Crouse of Lunenburg, a well-known skipper in the fishing industry who spent years in the bank fishery on schooners and also commanded trawlers out of Lunenburg.

The Rupert Brand operated for several years out of Canso, fishing at a variety of fishing grounds as far east as the Grand Banks.

On one trip in late January 1955, the Rupert Brand was fishing on the Grand Banks along with vessels from other companies and other countries. The weather on the fishing grounds was fair on the morning of January 23, but as the day wore on, it began to deteriorate. For the next several days, the fishing grounds were hampered by storm-force winds and high seas along with freezing spray.

Several trawlers fishing to the northeast off the