Francisco “Chico” Vicente blames town official for the loss of his beloved antique Chico and Jess fishing boat. But town officials say Vicente should have taken care of it himself. Vicente’s 59-foot Eastern rig dragger sank at its slip at the town’s MacMillan Pier. In recent months, Vicente had tried without success to raise the wood-hulled boat with the help of friends.
It is said that after the town won a lawsuit against Vicente for unpaid docking fees, a marine contractor raised the water-logged vessel, chopped it to pieces, and hauled it away in trash containers and a flat-bed truck. As a result the town’s commercial fishing fleet has dwindled to a handful of active vessels in recent years. Many townspeople, nostalgic for the older fishing heritage, came out to the pier to see the vessel raised.
Vicente said that it is a lack of a consistent night watch over docked vessels by the harbour master’s office, faulty electricity on the pier that caused his boat pumps to fail, and damage his boat sustained in 2007 from a larger, steel-hulled vessel improperly tied to his boat. According to pier officials Vicente never raised his complaints with the pier corporation board of directors when he appeared before them to negotiate payment terms for docking fees.
Len Clingham, chairman of the board, said since the sinking, other commercial fishermen were pressuring pier officials to free up the slip space. Vicente said his corporation, Chico-Jess Inc., is out of money and he could not pay the fees, but that he checked on the boat a couple of times each week.
