Missing fishermen braved ‘wild’ weather as they tried to get home

Chester and Aaron Barrett, the father-and-son fishermen from Addison who went missing over the weekend, had planned to drag for scallops close to home on Monday, according to a friend.

But they needed to get Chester’s boat, Sudden Impact, from Edmunds back to South Addison, their friend Chris Beal said Monday. When they set out on Saturday morning, they ran into foul weather after rounding West Quoddy Head in Lubec.

“They were in a rush to fish today,” said Beal, a fisherman who has known the Barretts for decades, during an interview on Monday.

The Barretts texted someone else during the trip and indicated they would try to seek shelter from the rough seas as soon as possible.

“It’s wild out here,” they said in a text, according to Beal.

They headed for Cutler.

But the Barretts and their scallop dragger did not make it to Cutler and were reported overdue that evening. After a Coast Guard search late Saturday and on Sunday, the boat is believed to have sunk en route.

Dean Barrett, Chester’s nephew and Aaron’s cousin, said he wasn’t sure if they checked the weather forecast before they left Edmunds and tried to make it home. He said his uncle is an experienced diver and so knew the hazards of the sea, but that the stretch of coast between Lubec and Cutler can be unforgiving.

If the tide and wind are running against each other, it can amplify the size of the swell and waves, he said.

“You’ve got 17 miles of raw ocean,” Dean Barrett said.

Beal echoed the assessment of that section of coastline.

“It’s a horrible place to be” in bad weather, Beal said. “There’s zero islands to shelter behind.”

The loss of Sudden Impact underscores the dangers of fishing in general and the hazards that draggers in particular can face. The Barretts were not fishing on Saturday, but draggers can capsize even in mild weather if their gear catches on the bottom.

During a 10-month span over a decade ago, from March 2009 to January 2010, three draggers capsized and sank in Cobscook Bay, taking the lives of five fishermen on two of the boats. The crew of the third boat, Miss Priss, were rescued by a nearby vessel and survived.

Last week, the Barretts and everyone else who had been fishing scallops in Cobscook Bay this winter found out they would have to move their boats elsewhere to continue through the end of the season in March. That came after state officials enacted an emergency closure of Cobscook Bay, including Whiting and Dennys bays, in order to protect the broodstock. For years, that area has been considered the most productive scallop-fishing grounds in Maine.

Now, other fishermen who have gone out looking for the Barretts think they may have located the missing boat via SONAR. It may be submerged near Moose Cove in about 160 feet of water, officials have said, but the weather on Monday remained too windy following an overnight snow storm for recovery efforts to proceed.

Beal said that Aaron Barrett, whom he has known since Aaron was a child, worked on Beal’s boat for roughly five years before Chester Barrett won a scallop license in a state lottery three years ago. Since then, Aaron has worked with his father during scallop season.

“Everybody’s just in shock,” Beal said, adding that he did not know the Barretts would be out on the water on Saturday. Scallop fishermen can only fish during certain days of the week, and draggers are not allowed to fish on weekends but can relocate from one fishing area to another any time.

“We kind of knew” they likely had sunk when they didn’t make it back to South Addison by the end of the day, Beal said. “We was holding hope they made it in somewhere.”

Brigitte Beal, Beal’s wife, said she and her husband and the Barretts — Chester, his wife Melanie and Aaron — owned neighboring camps at Schoodic Lake for 20 years.

“Chet and Aaron were remarkably hard workers, a very close father-and-son relationship, very well-known in our tight community, always willing to help, first with a joke, very family-oriented guys,” Brigitte Beal said. “We surely have lost two incredibly respected members of our community.”

Dean Barrett said his uncle and cousin were outgoing, friendly people but largely kept to themselves. His uncle enjoyed hunting deer, while his cousin was more partial to fishing for bass.

“Uncle Chet loved to hunt,” he said. “They’d always make time to be up at Schoodic Lake.”

Aaron didn’t have any of his own kids but had a girlfriend who lived in Bangor with two children from a prior relationship, Dean Barrett said. Aaron would take them fishing with him sometimes on trips to Schoodic Lake, he said.

Dean Barrett said he and another fisherman are planning to recover Sudden Impact from where they believe it came to rest on the bottom near Moose Cove. He said they tried on Sunday, but had to stop after the Coast Guard said conditions were too unsafe.

He said he and the other fishermen have larger fishing boats, and that he is sure they can resurface the sunken vessel between the two of them.

“I’m going to try to get it tomorrow,” Dean Barrett said.