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Three Dead After Their Fishing Boat Capsizes Near Newport

Oregon State Police
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OSP

Three crab fishermen are dead after their vessel capsized last night near Newport.

Before 10-pm, the U.S. Coast Guard heard of a boat needing help crossing the Yaquina Bay bar.

Captain Tim Fox of the Oregon State Police says at 10:13, responders learned that the vessel - the Mary B II - had capsized.

Credit OCVA / Flickr.com
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Flickr.com
A Coast Guard helicopter.

“The Coast Guard began an air search, and a ground search, and all three people have been located, but they are deceased,” Fox tells KLCC.

The Yaquina Bay bar is a treacherous stretch, according to Aaron Bretz of the Port of Newport.

“These river bars, where they clash with the incoming wave action that comes from all the way across the Pacific, right at the mouth of the entrance, generally the waves tend to get a little bit larger and more powerful, and sometimes they have breaking surf.”

Credit USGC_PNW / Twitter
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Twitter
A U.S. Coast Guard vessel at the Yaquinas Bay bar near where the Mary B II capsized.

48-year-old James Lacey was retrieved from the ocean, but pronounced dead at a Newport hospital. 50-year-old Joshua Porter was found dead on the shores of Nye Beach.  And the skipper, 50-year-old Stephen Biernacki, was found dead in his boat.

A GoFundMe drive for James Lacey's Memorial Fund can be found here.

A GoFundMe drive for Joshua Porter's Memorial Fund can be found here.

The Newport Fisherman's Wives are also taking donations for the surviving relatives of Porter, Lacey, and Biernacki here.

Copyright 2019, KLCC.

Brian Bull is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Oregon, and remains a contributor to the KLCC news department. He began working with KLCC in June 2016.   In his 27+ years as a public media journalist, he's worked at NPR, Twin Cities Public Television, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Wisconsin Public Radio, and ideastream in Cleveland. His reporting has netted dozens of accolades, including four national Edward R. Murrow Awards (22 regional),  the Ohio Associated Press' Best Reporter Award, Best Radio Reporter from  the Native American Journalists Association, and the PRNDI/NEFE Award for Excellence in Consumer Finance Reporting.
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