Just before 8 p.m., Tuesday, February 6, 2018, the fishing vessel Fisherman’s Provider II ran hard aground on a shoal nearly three miles from Canso, Nova Scotia. Three crewmembers successfully abandoned ship into a life raft and were taken onboard another fishing boat. However, the Provider’s captain, Roger Stoddard, refused to join his crew and stubbornly ignored repeated calls on VHF Radio, cell phone and even refused to respond to shouts from fellow fishermen near enough to the Provider to be heard onboard the stricken vessel. It seems Captain Stoddard was intent on going down with his ship. This is Part III of Providing No More.
His friends and peers said that fishing was not a way of life for Roger Stoddard, it was his life.
Ultimately, it was also his death.
For several hours after the Fisherman’s Provider II struck Frying Pan Shoal, several vessels stood watch nearby with their crews peering through snow squalls hoping to see or hear Roger.
As seas washed over the shoal, it was too dangerous to attempt boarding the stranded boat in the darkness. Crewmembers from the Coast Guard ship Bickerton braved the foaming waters in a zodiac and managed to get alongside on several occasions.
They banged on the hull of the Provider and shone high powered lights through the boat’s windows, but they could not see or hear Roger Stoddard. They considered an attempt to scramble up the side of the vessel and onto the deck, but the sea swells caused both the zodiac and the larger vessel to heave dangerously, so the plan was abandoned.
As word of Roger Stoddard’s decision to stay with his vessel spread around the town of Canso, people went to the wharf or anywhere in town where they thought it possible to get a glimpse of Frying Pan Shoal. Others peered out from their home windows almost trance-like, trying to convince themselves that there must be some mistake. Why would anyone do such a thing?
As daylight broke Wednesday morning, the sense of helplessness around Canso grew stronger.
Despite the cold and snowy February night that just ended, many people somehow expected to see Roger appear from below deck and announce that he was ready to leave the boat. But that didn’t happen.
Just before 7 a.m., the Coast Guard sent a message to the RCMP requesting it send officers to the scene with orders for Roger Stoddard to abandon ship. That didn’t happen either. The RCMP’s response was that a dive team was on the way that afternoon.
By mid-morning Wednesday, the Provider was turning into a wreck. Oil began leaking from the vessel as the hull was still grinding on the rocky bottom in the swells, fishing gear and debris was sloshing around on the deck and water was rushing in and out of a hole punctured by rocks on the port side of the hull. With life expectancy in those conditions believed to be approximately six or seven hours at best, hopes of seeing Roger alive were fading fast.
A Transport Canada aircraft circled overheard using infrared heat sensor equipment looking for a heat signature that would indicate anyone onboard the vessel was alive. The Joint Rescue Centre in Halifax received a message from the aircraft at 11:30 a.m. simply stating no heat signature.
Other than the matter of whether rescuers had the legal authority to force a marine skipper from a vessel when he had clearly indicated he had no intentions of abandoning his ship, there was another major concern Coast Guard officials had to consider. More than 26 years before the grounding of the Fisherman’s Provider II, three Coast Guard members died while attempting to recover a recreational body surfer near the shoreline in Middle Cove, Newfoundland.
That tragedy has been part of instructional material for recruits learning the search and rescue business and although professional marine rescuers still take huge risks, they are also advised to seriously consider their own safety.
But still, with relatively good weather for the middle of winter and no indication of any activity on Frying Pan Shoal, people around Canso were growing frustrated and even angry.
There was a grounded vessel with a man onboard in full view of everyone in the community and as far as onlookers were concerned, nothing was being done about it. Many of the people watching the events unfold were from fishing families and almost all of them had lost a relative or someone they knew to the ocean.
They were well aware of the agony Roger Stoddard’s family would face if he wasn’t recovered. As one fisherman put it, “with the boat starting to break up, a body could wash out to sea and never be found and that would be very hard to deal with.”
On Wednesday night, the weather took a turn for the worse. By 7 a.m. Thursday, winds were gusting to 80 kilometres per hour and seas were growing higher and higher. By then, the mission had been officially labelled a recovery effort and not a rescue. A Search and Rescue Cormorant helicopter managed to land on the shoal Thursday and rescue workers walked as far as they could toward the Provider, but high winds and seas forced them to turn back.
By Thursday afternoon a group of local fishermen decided they couldn’t wait any longer — it was time to take matters into their own hands.
Alan Newell was one of them. Alan lost his dad, Mike, in a fishing accident when he became tangled in ropes and was dragged overboard. He remembers his own torture while waiting and hoping for the best as searchers looked for his dad. Thankfully, Mike’s body was recovered.
Driven by that memory, Alan said he had to try and do something to bring Roger Stoddard home, so he got together with several friends and decided to go to Frying Pan Shoal on Friday.
The makeshift crew of rescuers studied charts of the precise location of the Fisherman’s Provider II and calculated water depths on different sides of the shoal and other navigational info. They noted that low tide would occur shortly after daylight Friday morning and they knew from observing the stricken vessel over the previous two days, that would be the best time to attempt a boarding because most of the vessel would be above water then.
They carefully reviewed the weather forecast and the expected wave action and wind direction to determine exactly where they would approach the grounded vessel. The men knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but they were somewhat comforted with the knowledge that seas were going to be choppy but not dangerous and winds were expected to be light.
The men calculated they would have about one hour to carry out their mission before the tide started rising and the weather could deteriorate by late morning.
Joining Alan were Mike Geddes and Gregory MacDonald, along with Steve Meade and his son Garth. Steve Gorham, who went to school in Barrington Passage with Roger’s children, was on his way to Canso Thursday evening as well. He had been in touch with Alan and the others and said he would meet them at the wharf at daybreak Friday morning.
Alan and his buddies might not have been trained as search and rescue professionals but, you’d never say that if you saw them in action. The fishermen had diving gear, survival suits, chainsaws, knives, axes, flashlights, ladders, charged cell phones and hot coffee. They even had a body bag.
The six friends gathered at the Canso wharf Friday morning and boarded Alan Newell’s fishing vessel, the Old Sock. They pulled away from the wharf at 7:05 a.m.
As Alan idled the Old Sock just offshore from Frying Pan Shoal, Steve Goreham and Mike Geddes, both divers, were dropped off on the shoal in an 18-foot speedboat. Steve and Mike were alongside the Provider before 7:30 a.m. The men assessed the job ahead, noting that the vessel was listing at a 45-degree angle, covered in ice and full of debris on and below deck as far as they could see.
Undaunted, Mike and Steve wasted no time getting started.
With a chainsaw, they cut a hole in the deck that would allow them entry into the sleeping quarters where they thought Roger would be located. Tossing debris aside to clear a path, they eventually made it to the bunk area and, just as they suspected, Roger was lying in his bunk wearing the same overalls he wore when last seen on Tuesday. He had taken off his boots and looked like he was peacefully sleeping, Steve and Mike said.
Fastening ropes to a heavy blanket the two men fashioned a makeshift sling to wrap the body in and carefully lifted their friend from his bunk, first to the deck and then to the shoal and onboard the speedboat.
As soon as they had secured the body onboard the Old Sock, Captain Alan Newell notified the RCMP that were waiting at the wharf in Canso along with an ambulance. Steve Goreham called Roger’s daughter to tell her that her dad was coming home, not alive, but coming home, nonetheless.
Everyone said Roger Stoddard was happiest when he was on the ocean, prompting someone to say “he likely died a happy man.”
