-Caveat Lector- Found at: http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/jfk21fish.htm Fishermen question why their local expertise not sought by Kennedy investigators By NOELLE BARTON CONTRIBUTING WRITER and JOHN LEANING STAFF WRITER While the search continues on the ocean floor, commercial fishermen out of Menemsha harbor on Martha's Vineyard - where the state police dive team launches - are questioning why officials have not asked for their help to save time searching the sea bed. "My fish finder can tell what a wreck is and what a rock is," said Randy Moniz, a 22-year veteran fisher of the area. "This is like our backyard. We're more familiar with the bottom here because we've worked it all our lives." Moniz joined his colleague, Michael de Coninck, a member of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Commission, yesterday aboard de Coninck's red and white dragger, "Millpoint." While both expressed sadness over the tragedy, they said information they have could be vital to any search of the ocean floor off Gay Head, where fishermen learn by hard experience to steer clear of 40-foot boulders and a dozen ship wrecks and World War II-era aircraft. De Coninck and other commercial fishermen use electronically plotted maps of their past drags. He pointed to marks of several wrecks, rock piles and other debris on a map that he has assembled over 15 years of pulling nets through the search area of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s lost plane. Commercial draggers - boats that drag nets along the ocean floor - use the same equipment that the official search and recovery boats carry, de Coninck said. This includes a "Loran" navagating device, a plotter that pens the path of a drag onto paper lined with coordinates, a radar, and a fish finder - a picture producing device that can show any section of depth of the water. In addition, some commercial riggs carry global position systems and satellite navigation equipment, which are commonly used by search and recovery teams. The ocean floor off the southwest coast of Aquinnah is rocky from shore to about two or three miles off shore, de Coninck said. Just beyond that lies a swath of smooth, sandy bottom, where he and other fishermen drag their nets. If a net is snagged in wreckage, all of the in-water equipment can be ripped from the boat's deck, an event that shook de Coninck several years ago. A damaged net costs a fisherman about $2,500 to replace; the total value of the in-water equipment they use is about $7,000. The official search teams are using charts of the waters provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In terms of debris or wreckage, the maps identify structures known to be a hazard to navigation -- such as the 30-feet-deep ridge that the Queen Elizabeth 2 ran upon in 1992 off Cuttyhunk Island. The two Fairhaven-based fishermen speculated as to why officials have not reached out to the fishermen to locate smaller debris areas despite the fact fishermen have offered their maps to the state police diving teams. "They're going to look foolish if they don't find it," Moniz said. "The last thing they want is some dumb fishermen coming over there and telling the military what to do." But Coast Guard officials yesterday 7/20, disagreed. maintaining they rely heavily on local knowledge. "They rely heavily on local knowledge," said Chief Petty Officer David Oney, at the search command center at Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. Oney said Coast Guard personnel at the Menemsha station on the Vineyard update their charts based on local knowledge, and "have a good relationship with local fishermen." Knowing beforehand where some of these obstructions are located would help save time locating the wreckage, said one Cape Cod diver familiar with the area. "If you have the knowns, look at the unknowns, at least first," said Eric Takakjian, a tugboat skipper and expert diver who has explored many wrecks in that area and in more dangerous waters, including the Andrea Doria off Nantucket. "There are a lot of other wrecks out there - fishing boats, World War II plane wrecks, including fighters and one four-engine bomber," Takakjian said. "There is a sand and gravel bottom, but there are a lot of boulders out there. Some are the size of a house, 30, 40 feet high." "Side-scan sonar is the way to do it, but the key is to know what's already out there so you don't waste time looking for stuff you know is there," he said. Throughout his career, de Coninck has pulled up wreckage from boats and planes, including a small airplane's landing gear and another's engine off the Nantucket coast. Gregory Mayhew, who captains the commercial dragger "Unicorn," said he was not surprised the dive team had discovered a big rock where sonar equipment had marked possible wreckage on Monday. "We thought, well, gee this is kind of crazy," he said. His brother, Jonathan Mayhew, also a commercial fisherman, spoke briefly with state police officials as they fueled their boat early yesterday morning in the harbor, offering charts and plots of wrecks he has recorded in the area they are focusing on. Sport fisherman Ed Casey joined him there. Casey said the police responded that they were searching assigned areas and showed little interest in the plot maps. Later on in the day, Jonathan Mayhew delivered a plot map of the search area to officials connected to the search, Gregory Mayhew said. He doesn't know if it is being used. "Even if they do find the plane, the big pieces, we'll be the ones to find the rest later on," de Coninck said, adding that the good news is that the searchers have pinpointed nine spots to focus on. "Hopefully, they're not nine more boulders." "It costs people a lot of money just to learn what's on this piece of paper," de Coninck said of his 15-year record of items encountered on the ocean floor. ================================================================= Kaddish, Kaddish, Kaddish, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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