A Stonington lobsterman was rescued by a kayaker after his fishing boat caught fire and he leapt into the water, narrowly escaping injury.
Tyler Robbins, the boat’s captain and co-owner, was fishing off a local cove in Stonington this week when flames erupted from the boat’s engine.
“It was almost instantaneous,” Robbins said in an interview with the Ad-Vantages. “It was a matter of minutes from the time the engine blew to when the thing was completely engulfed.”
Robbins was steaming into Webb Cove to haul his traps on Monday when the fire started. He said he had just enough time to send out an emergency call on the radio, then call his fiancée before leaping into the water.
“I told him to jump off, then the line went dead,” said Robbins’ fiancée, Sabrina Fitzgerald. She later said it was one of the scariest moments of her life.
Robbins was quickly rescued by local kayak guide Will Steinharter, who was leading a tour nearby, and was shortly after picked up by a friend in a lobster boat.
“As we were coming up on Buckminster Neck [near] Oceanville Road, I smelled smoke and as we went along it got stronger,” Steinharter said. “Then I heard someone calling for help.”
Robbins was uninjured, but his boat, the 24-foot gas-powered Yes Deah, was a total loss.
The call to emergency responders went out at about 1 p.m., according to Stonington Fire Chief Steve Rittmeyer. Local firefighters, the Maine Marine Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard were on the scene for over five hours, Rittmeyer said. The burning boat eventually ended up aground on Buckminster Ledge, on the eastern edge of Stonington’s Oceanville peninsula.
Rittmeyer said attacking the burning vessel was a challenge. Stuck on the ledge, the boat was inaccessible to most of the department’s normal trucks and equipment. Rittmeyer said firefighters got to the scene on foot, walking along the shore with their turn-out gear. They fought the fire using a portable pump set up by the Coast Guard.
“It was really difficult, we couldn’t get to it by land,” Rittmeyer said. “It was way out in the seaweed and we just couldn’t get to it with our apparatus.”
Robbins feels lucky to be alive. He was grateful for the people who came to his aid and the first responders who battled the blaze. Robbins co-owned Yes Deah with Courtney and Jeff Dorchester of Stonington.
Because it was a homemade, wooden boat built more than 50 years ago, Robbins said he couldn’t get it insured.
After the fire, a friend took Robbins out to bait his traps, but like almost any other lobstermen along the coast of Maine, the loss of his boat likely means the loss of his livelihood.
Just a day after the harrowing incident, Robbins doesn’t know what to do next.
“Basically, I need to make enough money to find something else,” Robbins said.