Ship Sinks Off Pope’s Island Marina

A crane was used Tuesday morning to pull up a fishing boat that sank near Pope's Island Marina in New Bedford.

Harbormaster David Condon says the sinking of the Elizabeth & Jessica of Scituate was reported to him around 8:30 a.m.

He says they were able to pull the boat to the surface and, after pumping the water out of the vessel, it was able to stay afloat.

Condon says that while this was an unfortunate incident for the owner, things could have been much worse.

"Thankfully there was no one around, there was no one onboard, obviously the most important thing is noone got hurt, noone injured, no damage to anything beyond that one boat, and very minimal impact to the environment."

While there was an oil spill condon says it was relatively minor.

"There was a very, very small amount of oil," said Condon "but that was contained with a small boom and cleaned up."

Condon says the owner of the boat has been extremely cooperative.

"Obviously it was unfortunate for him that it was his boat, but he was cooperative and proactive, contracted the salvage company immediately, and they came out within a couple of hours and flushed it out of the water and pumped it out," said Condon.

Tucker Roy Marine Towing & Salvage was the salvage company called into pull out the boat.