NEW BEDFORD, Mass., Dec. 21 -- Even by the hard-bitten standard of the livelihood they chose, it was a cruel time and place to be lost at sea, tossed in the heaving, frigid swells, a few days before Christmas.
A local scallop boat, the Northern Edge, capsized Monday afternoon about 45 miles southeast of Nantucket, and five crewmen were missing. The news spread like a fog across this port town, which has not lost so many fishermen in a single instance in more than a decade.
Five members of the Northern Edge's crew have been missing since Monday.
(Peter K. Prybot -- AP)
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By Tuesday evening, a Coast Guard jet and helicopter and two cutters had covered about 1,500 square miles in the region where the ship disappeared. An empty life vest and a floatation ring were all that was spotted.
A sixth crewman, Pedro Furtado, was pulled from a life raft by the fishermen aboard another New Bedford boat, the Diane Marie, soon after the 76-foot Northern Edge sent out a distress signal at 4:44 p.m. Monday.
Despite 15-foot swells and temperatures well below freezing, a Coast Guard spokesman said the search would go on.
"We keep looking until there's no more chance of finding somebody," Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin Benson said. "The families need to know that there was no more that could have been done."
Hope had not been lost, he added, but "if anyone makes it, in these conditions, it would be a very long survival."
New Bedford (population 93,768), a 19th-century whaling hub, owes its history of both triumphs and tragedies to the ocean. Long one of New England's fishing capitals, the southeastern Massachusetts shore community has fallen on hard times in recent years, with a decline in the industry driving up unemployment.
In the Seamen's Bethel, a church built in 1831 that is described in Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" as a place whalers stopped in for services, plaques bear the names of many of the more than 260 local fishermen who have died at sea since 1925.
The rickety wooden structure, which holds 300 people, is known for holding jampacked memorials when fishermen are lost. The last time as many as five men from the same vessel were mourned, according to church records, was in 1992.
"We've been getting phone calls all day, but we tell them we're waiting and we don't know any more than anybody else," said Allan Eaton, the caretaker. "It's a tough time of year for this to happen."
Carlos Lopes of New Bedford was identified in early reports as the ship's captain, but because fishing boats often juggle crew members in the days before departure, the identities of the rest of the crew were not immediately known. That added uncertainty to the agony of those waiting for word.
"Whenever we say goodbye to our men, we know something like this might happen," said Deb Shrader, the wife of a scallop fisherman and the director of Shore Support, a New Bedford organization that is an advocate for fishermen and their families. "We're all still sick at heart, trying to figure out who we lost."
The Coast Guard later identified the other missing crewmen as Glen Crowley, Juan Flores, Eric Guillen and Ray Richards, the Associated Press reported.
