Two Cooke Aquaculture workers were rescued off the coast of Maine, U.S.A., this past weekend after their boat caught fire. The vessel was a complete loss.
Brett Newman and Patrick Blair were supplying feed to Cooke’s farm sites on a 40-foot lobster-style boat in Passamaquoddy Bay when it caught fire. The two employees, who were not injured, noticed smoke and then flames from the engine room, according to a Maine Department of Marine Resources statement.
While the cause of the fire is unknown, “the crew of two is safe and sound and are very grateful for being rescued from their life raft by Maine Marine Patrol Officer Brian Brodie,” Joel Richardson, vice president of public relations for Saint Johns, New Brunswick, Canada-based Cooke Aquaculture, told SeafoodSource.
The company is “appreciative of the U.S. Coast Guard for monitoring the boat until fire crews could arrive to extinguish it,” Richardson added.
Newman and Blair were found by Brodie, who was on a routine patrol, around five minutes after they deployed the life raft.
The fire-damaged boat was towed back to Canadian waters by another Cooke vessel, according Richardson.
“It was removed from the water on Saturday morning to be scrapped as a complete loss," he said.