SWORDFISH GETS EVEN BY ATTACKING BOAT (2)

Any visitors interested will need a magnifying glass for these clippings.


BOSTON GLOBE AUGUST 1965

ELEVEN YEARS LATER CAME THE SWORDFISH REVENGE

     I drove to the scene of the crime, took photos of the damage to my son's boat, and wrote an article for the September 1976 issue of National Fisherman. The sword broke a plank in the hull of the Carla Joyce.

                   

From text below:  Looking for where the trouble was, we checked the stern stuffing box, the sea cocks, all the pipes and fittings -- everything looked okay.  Then we noticed the water seemed to be coming from the forward end of the engine room.
    Ripping up the floorboards, the crew was confronted by the source of their woes: eighteen inches of swordfish bill had rammed its way through the two-inch hull planking.  The rest of the fish must have broken off, Captain D'Entremont speculates, at the time he started the boat and headed toward St. Jude.
     At first it seemed advisable to leave the sword embedded in the planking as a sort of "plug" in the wound, but when water continued pouring in, the skipper decided to remove the sword and patch the hole.
     Pushed from the jagged 5-inch by 2-inch gash it had created, the sword sank back into the sea.  The crew patched the torn planking.  A Coast Guard helicopter had arrived by this time.  Finding the fog too thick to attempt direct delivery of two pumps and gasoline, the rescue copter finally dropped the supplies nearby, marking them with a signal flare.  The St. Jude picked them up and delivered them to the Carla Joyce.
     When the patchwork job was completed, only one pump was needed to keep the water level down.  Captain D'Entremont steamed toward Gloucester for more permanent repairs, meeting along the way with the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa.  With the patch still holding at 7 p.m., D'Entremont thanked the Coast Guard for standing by and continued on under his own power.