Tag Archives: Grand Bank Newfoundland
The Blue Wave and Blue Mist sank more than 50 years ago. Grand Bank never forgets
The vicious storms of February — with gale-force winds and mountainous waves — are a constant reminder to Grand Bank of the price its people have paid to earn a living from the sea.,, Many of us still have painful memories of the loss of the schooner Mabel Dorothy in 1955, along with her six-man crew. This tragedy was followed less than four years later when the steel side trawler Blue Wave capsized and sank, carrying her 16-man crew with her. Just seven years after that in 1966, a similarly designed ship from the local fishing fleet, the Blue Mist, met the same fate, taking the lives of the 13 men onboard. >click to read< 06:54
Down Memory Lane: The Blue Wave and Blue Mist tragedies
Grand Bank, like most other smaller communities in this province, has always depended on the sea for its very existence. From the days of small schooners and punts — powered only by the wind and sails — to the larger offshore banking schooners and then the wooden and steel trawlers, the men of that town have always looked to the nearby ocean to provide a livelihood. The Bonavista Cold Storage fresh fish plant opened in Grand Bank in the early 1950s, just as the days of the wooden schooner deep-sea salt fishery were coming to an end. The first two steel side-trawlers purchased by the company came from the United Kingdom and were designed for the North Sea fishery. >click to read<14:13
