Tag Archives: went down with 16 men onboard

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