PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An 83-foot (25-meter) motor boat that was one of the first refrigerated sardine carriers during the heyday of Maine’s sardine industry is going to be scrapped after a recovery operation to retrieve the sunken vessel.
The Jacob Pike fell victim to a storm last winter.
The 21-year-old great-great-grandson of the vessel's namesake wants the historic wooden vessel to be preserved, and formed a nonprofit that would use it as an educational platform. But the U.S. Coast Guard doesn’t have the authority to transfer ownership of the vessel. And any new owner could become responsible for repaying up to $300,000 for environmental remediation.
Sumner Pike Rugh said he's still hoping to work with the Coast Guard but understands the vessel's fate is likely sealed.
“It’s an ignominious end to a storied vessel,” said his father, Aaron Pike Rugh.
Around the world, Maine is synonymous with lobster — the state’s signature seafood — but that wasn’t always the case. Over the years, hundreds of sardine canneries operated along the Maine coast.
The first U.S. sardine cannery opened in 1875 in Eastport, Maine, with workers sorting, snipping and packing sardines, which fueled American workers and, later, allied troops overseas. On the nation's opposite coast, sardine canneries were immortalized by John Steinbeck in his 1945 novel “Cannery Row,” which focused on Monterey, California.
Launched in 1949, the Jacob Pike is a wooden vessel with a motor, along with a type of refrigeration system that allowed the vessel to accept tons of herring from fishing vessels before being offloaded at canneries.
When tastes changed and sardines fell out of favor — leading to the shuttering of canneries — the Jacob Pike vessel hauled lobsters. By last winter, its glory days were long past as it sank off Harpswell during a powerful storm.
In recent years there's been a resurgence of interest in tinned fish, but the historic ship was already sailed — or in this case, sunk.
Sumner Rugh, a senior at the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, was halfway around the world on a tanker off the coast of South Korea when he learned that the vessel he wanted to preserve was gone. No one else seemed interested in the vessel, he said, so he started the nonprofit Jacob Pike Organization with a board that includes a former owner.
He said he hoped that the Coast Guard would hand the vessel over to the nonprofit without being saddled with costs associated with environmental remediation. Since that's not possible, he's modifying his goal of saving the entire vessel intact. Instead, he hopes to save documentation and enough components to be able to reconstruct the vessel.
The Coast Guard took over environmental remediation of fuel, batteries and other materials that could foul the ocean waters when the current owner was either unable or unwilling to take on the task, said Lt. Pamela Manns, a spokesperson based in Maine. The owner’s phone wasn’t accepting messages on Tuesday.
Last week, salvage crews used air bags and pumps to lift the vessel from its watery grave, and it was sturdy and seaworthy enough to be towed to South Portland, Maine.
While sympathetic to Sumner Rugh's dream, Manns said the Coast Guard intends to destroy the vessel. “I can appreciate the fact that this boat means something to him, but our role is very clear. Our role is to mitigate any pollution threats. Unfortunately the Jacob Pike was a pollution threat,” she said.
In this image provided by Aaron Pike Rugh, the retired sardine carrier Jacob Pike, which sank last winter off Harpswell, Maine, is seen after a salvage company raised the vessel in this photo taken, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in waters off South Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Aaron Pike Rugh)
In this image provided by Aaron Pike Rugh, the retired sardine carrier Jacob Pike, which sank last winter off Harpswell, Maine, is seen after a salvage company raised the vessel in this photo taken, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in waters off South Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Aaron Pike Rugh)
An Israeli airstrike hit a mosque in central Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least 19 people were killed early Sunday. Israeli planes also lit up the skyline across the southern suburbs of Beirut, striking what the military said were Hezbollah targets.
The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Another four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town.
The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants, without providing evidence.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead from the strike on the mosque were all men, while another man was wounded.
In Beirut, the strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport and another formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest conflict, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Here is the latest:
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said one person was killed and 10 others were wounded in a stabbing and shooting attack in the southern city of Beersheba.
Sunday’s attack at the city’s central bus station came on the eve of the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza. The country is on high alert as it prepares to hold memorial ceremonies.
Israel’s police did not identify the assailant but said they were treating it as a terror attack. Palestinians have carried out a number of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks since the war began.
The attack comes a few days after seven people were killed in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv last Monday. In that attack, two Palestinian men opened fire on a crowd inside the city’s light rail and around the station before being killed by security forces in the area.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis issued a new appeal for peace “on every front” is his Sunday Angelus prayer and spoke of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel.
“Brothers and sisters, tomorrow it will be a year since the terrorist attack by Hamas against the people of Israel, to whom I renew my closeness,” the pontiff said. He called for the “immediate liberation" of the hostages still held in Gaza.
The pope called for a day of prayer and fasting on Monday, the first anniversary of the attack - which he said sparked a war that has taken a heavy toll on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
“From that day the Middle East has fallen into worse suffering because of destructive military actions that continue to hit the Palestinian people,” the pontiff said. "It is most of all innocent civilians, they must receive the necessary humanitarian aid.”
The pope repeated his plea for “an immediate ceasefire on every front," including Lebanon.
"Let’s pray for Lebanese people, especially for the people in the south forced to leave their villages.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Ahead of the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli military on Sunday displayed thousands of weapons seized from the militant group.
The military, which created the display at a sprawling army base south of Tel Aviv, said it has retrieved more than 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles from Gaza and destroyed double that number, as well as seized thousands of other items including drones, explosives, RPGs, scuba equipment, machine guns, sniper rifles, anti-tank missiles and weapons manufactured both inside Gaza and in Iran, Russia and North Korea.
The army also displayed homemade explosives it said Hamas used to burst through the border barrier on Oct. 7. It said they were crafted specifically after years of studying Israel’s border during years of Hamas-organized violent protests along the fence, including as early as 2018.
“What Hamas did on Oct. 7 was storm Israel with all their abilities at one time,” said military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. He said that the Israeli military had seized the weapons from Hamas, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to study the types of weapons used as well as track where they came from.
As Israel prepares for a day of somber memorials marking a year since the attacks, the military said it was increasing troop presence in Israel’s south to protect memorials taking place along the Gaza border.
A large memorial planned by bereaved families was expected to draw a crowd of more than 40,000 in Tel Aviv, but will be broadcast with only direct family members and media in attendance due to warnings from the military of possible rocket attacks from Lebanon.
BEIRUT — The southern suburbs of Beirut were hit by more than 30 strikes overnight, the heaviest bombardment since Sept. 23, when Israel began a significant escalation in its air campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Sunday.
The targets included a gas station on the main highway leading to the Beirut airport and a warehouse for medical supplies, the agency said.
Some of the overnight strikes set off a long series of explosions, suggesting that ammunition stores may have been hit.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron called for “a halt to arms exports for use in Gaza,” saying it's urgent to avoid escalating tensions in the region, his office said.
Macron drew strong criticism from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by saying "the priority is … that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza.” He made the comments in an interview with France Inter radio, which was recorded on Tuesday and aired Saturday.
France doesn’t deliver any weapons to Israel, Macron said.
Netanyahu released a video statement in which he called out the French president by name and referred to such calls as a “disgrace.”
In a statement, Macron’s office said “France is Israel’s unfailing friend. Mr. Netanyahu’s words are excessive and irrelevant to the friendship between France and Israel.”
“We must return to diplomatic solutions,” it added.
The statement also said that Macron had demonstrated his commitment to Israel's security when France mobilized its military resources in response to the Iranian attack. French authorities did not provided details about France’s role.
Macron has called for an immediate cease-fire in both Gaza and Lebanon.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An apparent Israeli airstrike early Sunday killed at least 18 people in central Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.
The strike hit a mosque sheltering displaced people near the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah, the hospital said in a statement.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead were all men. Another two men were critically wounded, the hospital said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment about the strike on the mosque.
The latest strikes add to the mounting Palestinian death toll in Gaza, which is now nearing 42,000 according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths, but many of the dead were women and children.
BEIRUT — Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, also striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.
Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.
The strong explosions began near midnight after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Beirut’s Haret Hreik and Choueifat neighborhoods. AP video showed the blasts illuminating the densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.
Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 30 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
Smoke rises from a destroyed building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A man checks the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Emergency workers inspect a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Israeli soldiers pray at a staging area in northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
An Israeli soldier prays at a staging area in northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
People check the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Smoke rises from a destroyed building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Mourners gather around the bodies of Palestinian men who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
