Thanking God for his spared life, the lone survivor of the Noble House seafood fishing boat tragedy is hoping for closure for the families of the three missing fishermen and himself.

Breaking his silence in an interview with News Source today, fisherman Vincent Dazzell said he is still having nightmares about being pitched overboard when his fishing vessel started to sink and clinging to a rafter for nearly an hour as his colleagues vanished in the deep waters of the Atlantic off the coast of Mahaicony.

Holding back tears, Mr. Dazelle recalled that on the morning of the 19th February he was called by the Captain of the boat, who showed him the problem they were facing as the boat started to take in water.

“When I go, the stern of the boat was already low in the water, very very low, the boat was taking a set of water. I open the ice hold and water was all over the place, and I checked the engine room and the gearbox was covered with water and I said Anthony (Captain’s call name) this boat is in bad shame and I tell the guys let us put on our life jackets and we did that”, he said.

According to Dazelle, the Captain started to make contact with Noble House Seafoods via the radio transmission system, but then that started to encounter problems.

“He called Noble House and he called the name of the boat which was 307 and said this boat taking in water and it is going down. During that time, the communication cut off, and the boat just keep going down all the time and he said he was going to get his phone to call the guy who takes the reports on the morning and with that, the boat went down”, the survivor explained.

He said as they were pitched overboard as the boat sank, he could not see the Captain and the other two fishermen but he held onto a raft and did not release it until a small boat arrived at the scene and this was almost an hour after the boat went underwater.

Dazzell said “while the boat was going down, I saw a life raft and I held onto that and I went down and when I raised up back, all I saw around me was the fising tub and the baskets and so on. No boat and none of the crewmen were around me and I start to say my prayers. I was in the water for about 45 minutes and my hands start to cramp up and a little after I see a small boat and they asked me if I could make it and I said no and then they pulled me up in the boat. I was blacked out momentarily but I didn’t know for how long”.

The man said when he regained consciousness the men in the small vessel questioned him about the other fishermen and they circled the area for a number of hours, with the hope of finding them but their efforts failed.

He said he was brought out to Unity and given money to take transportation to the city.

The fisherman said once he came to the city, he made his way to the Noble House location where he reported the matter and provided a statement. He said he was taken to the Marine Unit where he filed another report before being allowed to leave.

Dazzell said he was the one who informed the family of the other fishermen of what had taken place since the company never contacted them. He said the families demanded more answers from him and the very next day even as he tried to recover from his ordeal, he was arrested for questioning about possible murder, although there was no evidence of any such event.

He remained in Police custody for three days being questioned and moved between various stations before he was eventually released but told to report to the Police investigators daily.

Dazzell said he wants something to be found from the boat and the other fishermen since it appears that the families of the missing fishermen do not believe his story of the tragedy. He said he was even summoned to the office of the Minister of Works, Juan Edghill where he was interrogated by the Minister himself, who said he was under pressure to provide results about the probe.

“Yesterday, around minutes to two, two Marine Officers came on motorbikes and told me I have to go to MARAD (Maritime Department) in Kingston to see the Minister and I went there yesterday afternoon and he told me that he was under pressure and need answers…I could only tell him what took place…he said he is under pressure and he need answers and I told him what took place and he asked me the question about three times, what took place, what took place, what took place, tell him the truth, tell him the truth and it was the truth that I was speaking all the time and I can only tell him what took place”, Dazzell told News Source.

He said the Minister questioned him as to why he could not find the location when he was taken back to sea by the search team. But he was never taken back out to sea with any search team, and he said the Minister seemed surprised by that fact and may have been misled by someone else.

The survivor said he is still trying to process the tragedy and while the families and the authorities seek answers, he has found himself being treated as the perpetrator of something that did not take place. He said he has received threatening phone calls from relatives of the missing fishermen and as it is now, he is simply hoping for closure for them all.

The man who said he has worked as a fisherman for over 15 years said Noble House Seafoods has also never reached out to him since the tragedy to see how he was coping. He said it has been tough for him over the past few weeks and believes it was important now to tell his side of the story, to make it clear that the tragedy was real and there was nothing else that took place on the fatal fishing trip off the coast of Mahaicony.

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