Tag Archives: death of Walter Krupinski

Yacht captain gets probation in death of Stonington fisherman Walter Krupinski

A New Jersey yacht captain has been sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay $1,800 of restitution after pleading guilty to colliding with a small fishing boat off Westerly in 2015, killing its captain, 81-year-old Walter Krupinski of Stonington. In sentencing documents, the attorney for Cooper Bacon disputed the findings of a Coast Guard investigation which found he was at fault for Krupinski’s death but said Bacon pleaded guilty to manslaughter “to avoid protracting the pain of this accident any further for both Mr. Krupinski’s family and his own.” As part of the sentencing agreement, Bacon surrendered his Coast Guard 100-ton merchant mariner’s certificate, agreed not to work as a captain for hire and is limited to operating a small personally-owned boat.,,, Krupinski’s wife, Peggy, said Tuesday that she did not feel the probation and the reimbursement of the money she had to spend to dispose of the damaged boat, was enough of a sentence. “To me, he got off pretty easy,” she said. >click to read<10:04

Yacht Captain Charged With Negligence After Fatal Collision In Waters Near Stonington

A federal grand jury has indicted a professional yacht captain for maritime negligence, charging that his failure to maintain a look-out and other inattentiveness were responsible for a collision that took the life of a Connecticut fisherman near Watch Hill, R.I., two years ago. The grand jury charged that Capt. Cooper “Chick” Bacon, 78, of Cape May, N.J., was running a 60-foot Viking luxury motor yacht though a marked passage into Fishers Island Sound at more than 30 knots when he ran over a 23-foot skiff operated by 81-year old Walter S. Krupinski of Stonington. click here to read the story 11:22

Yacht Captain in fatal crash is guilty

The New Jersey captain who was operating the 60-foot yacht that collided with a Stonington fisherman’s boat off Watch Hill Reef in September 2015 was found guilty on Monday of three violations of Coast Guard navigation rules. Licensed Captain Cooper Bacon, 76, was piloting the larger vessel between boat shows in Rhode Island and Connecticut when he collided with 81-year-old Walter Krupinski’s 23-foot Steiger center console. The Stonington resident, who was a commercial rod and reel fisherman, was fishing off Watch Hill Reef and had decided to head home for the day when the collision occurred, resulting in Krupinski’s death. continue reading the story here 08:34