This photo of two boats in the Provincetown harbor is certainly not at the top of my 2005 list for aesthetic reasons. I took it casually while waiting to board a ferry to Boston at the end of my trip in July. My memory of the photo was jogged a few months later reading an article in the paper:
PROVINCETOWN – (10/05/05) Two mainstays of the local fishing fleet sank early yesterday morning and are expected to be raised sometime this week. The Pat Sea and Joan Tom, two wooden Eastern rig draggers, went down sometime around 3 a.m. according to Provincetown Harbor Master Rex McKinsey. The two fishing vessels are ”part of our traditional fleet. They've both been around a while,” McKinsey said. ”What happened here is a darned shame.”
No one is sure what caused the boats to go down while berthed in Provincetown Harbor, but it is possible heavy rain could have been a factor. The two vessels were tied to one another or ”rafted up” in the vernacular of seamen, prior to sinking, according to McKinsey. It is theorized one of the fishing vessels might have taken on water and begun sinking, pulling the other vessel along.
Sure enough, those were the boats I shot that afternoon. This may not have been their last portrait, but it was certainly one of them.
