Clarence Vautier - The Trawlermen

The Trawlermen

CLARENCE VAUTIER

F lanker Press Limited

St. Johns

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.

2017 by Clarence Vautier

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Contents

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.

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 Bettys hometown of Pass Island. After their wedding they moved to Grand Bank, where most of Charlies 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.

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.