Joy in Newfoundland after ‘Lucky 7′ fishers survive harrowing days lost at sea

The Elite Navigator fishing boat and its crew seemed to vanish on Wednesday night after several days at sea fishing for turbot. The craft was reported missing on Thursday after transmitting its final signal at around 8:30 p.m. the night before, the Canadian Coast Guard said. The vessel had caught fire, forcing the crew to abandon the ship and wait for rescue on the life-raft.

A massive search soon followed, involving four coast guard ships, a Cormorant helicopter, a Hercules aircraft and many local fishing vessels.

In New-Wes-Valley, which is an amalgamation of three small fishing communities along Newfoundland’s northeast coast, people braced for the worst. Fishing is among Canada’s deadliest professions, and tragedy is a common thread linking people in fishing communities across Atlantic Canada.

But on Friday night, out on the ocean, searchers saw a light from a flare. It brought them to a life-raft, where the seven fishermen — who people are now calling the Lucky 7 — were waiting.

The men spent about 50 hours adrift in the raft, about about 220 kilometres away from land, said Eugene Carter, the crew’s captain. The fire broke out on Wednesday night in a locker on the main deck when they were just a couple of hours into a 25-hour journey home, he said.

“We tried to extinguish the fire once, and then it just shot right back at us,” Carter said in an interview. “It’s like wood burning. We heard the cracking. So we knew that it was pretty serious and that it was out of our control.”

He put out three distress calls, he said, but they weren’t answered. “The fire probably melted the devices, stuff like that, wouldn’t allow it.”

The crew passed the time in the life-raft telling jokes and passing their flashlight around as if it were a microphone to interview one another.

“It was unbelievable, but everybody kept their cool to the most that they could,” Carter said.

It was cold and foggy and wet, and the men were crammed into a boat roughly the size of a small car. Sleep was scant, coming only if they managed to nod off with their heads tipped onto their chests. Birds — “a lot of birds” — swooped and flitted around the raft, “driving us crazy,” Carter said.

As Friday wore on, a few of the fishermen seemed to be losing hope they’d ever be found. But Carter said he had a feeling. He had two flares left, and he knew he had to wait out the fog before he used either one. That night, when the sky finally cleared, he set off a smoke flare. Nothing happened for a few hours, he said, but then a helicopter appeared and flew right over the raft. Carter said he scrambled to light his hand-held flare in time to wave it at the helicopter.

“They didn’t see it, and that was my last flare,” he said. “But a coast guard ship was actually looking out, and seen it. And that’s what got us rescued, my last flare.”

Fisher Toby Peddle said he was terrified as he lept from the burning fishing boat onto the life-raft. He can’t swim, he said in an interview, and he didn’t have a survival suit on.

“It was either jump and risk drowning or stay and be burned,” he said. “There was no time to think about it. I just knew I had to jump.”

Carter and another crew member, Jordan Lee King, promised they’d grab him as soon as he hit the water, Peddle said, And they made good on their promise.

“I was relieved I made it to the raft. I couldn’t swim a stroke to save my life,” Peddle said.

Peddle credited Carter for keeping the crew calm as they drifted in the life-raft, surrounded by nothing but fog and an endless expanse of ocean.

“He just kept telling us, ‘We’re going to be fine. They know where we are, they’ll find us,’” he said. “He’s a hero.”

The hardest moments came when the men could hear helicopters flying overhead and knew the pilots couldn’t see them through the fog.

A parade is planned for Sunday evening in New-Wes-Valley to celebrate the men’s survival, and Premier Andrew Furey is in the community and is expected to attend. Signs around the town say, “Welcome home Lucky 7.”

When the fishers were still missing, the community announced it was cancelling its annual Crab Festival, which was set to begin on Saturday. Now that the men are home, the festival is back on, with opening day on Monday.

At the wharf in New-Wes-Valley on Sunday afternoon, Peter Barfoot’s phone was pinging relentlessly in his pocket. He is good friends with David Tiller, one of the rescued fishermen, and he’d just launched a fundraising campaign to buy Tiller a new guitar.

The instrument went down with the Elite Navigator and Barfoot said it was “a no-brainer” to mount an effort to buy him a new one. He’d raised about $1,600 by Sunday afternoon.

“They’re heroes,” Barfoot said, shaking his head in disbelief. “How often do you hear this? It was a dire situation that turned into what it is now … They’re alive. They got a second chance at their life.”

Carter said he was still coming to grips with what happened. But he was ready to head back out to fish.

“I told all my crew members ‘Statistically, you could be driving to Gander every day and you’d have a better chance of getting in an accident in your vehicle than of this happening again,” he said. “Don’t give up on your fishing.”

Frank Granter, who worked for the Canadian Coast Guard for 35 years and was out walking through the community on Sunday afternoon, said it was a miracle the Lucky 7 returned.

“It’s once in a lifetime you’ll see something like this, when all the people survive,” Granter said.

“But October, November, it would have been a different story.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2024.

— With files from Michael Tutton in Halifax

Sarah Smellie and Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Joy in Newfoundland after ‘Lucky 7′ fishers survive harrowing days lost at sea

More Local News