Maine Marine Patrol Investigating Prank at Oceanville Docks
WCHS6
The Maine Marine Patrol is trying to figure out who cut several fishing boats loose from an area dock early Friday morning. Officials say 12 boats were cut from their finger floats at a lobster buying station on Webb Cove in Oceanville. The boats drifted away and some of them went as far as a half-mile out to the mouth of the cove. Lobster fishermen who arrived at the buying station shortly before 5 a.m. say they immediately noticed their vessels were gone, and several boaters who were unaffected by the prank then helped round up the fishing boats. While some fishermen lost a day of work, many said they were thankful that their boats sustained no damage.
“It was flat calm last night so the boats drifted out nice and easy,” said Clayton Wheelden, whose boat drifted at least a quarter of a mile into the cove, “if there had been even a 10 mile an hour wind last night, they would have all gone on the rocks and there would have been pieces of boats all through the cove.”
The Marine Patrol estimates that the lines at the dock were cut sometime before or after midnight. Anyone with any information is asked to contact the state police.
