GLOUCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The story is as chilling as it is all too familiar here in America’s oldest fishing village, where for centuries fishermen, in pursuit of the ocean’s bounty, have fallen prey to nature’s full force and elements that inexorably overwhelm all that is human.

On Thursday, in the rushing darkness of a winter twilight, the three-man crew of the 51-foot Orin C went into the water and only two emerged safely onto the deck of the U.S. Coast Guard’s 47-foot lifesaving boat out of Station Gloucester.

David Sutherland, 47, of 10 Montvale Ave.— known to all along the waterfront as Heavy D —died in the water as the Coast Guard tried to rescue him after his slime eel boat sunk about 12 miles off Thacher Island.

“At the end of the day, we managed to save two men, but we lost one and that’s heartbreaking for his family, this community and for us,’’ said U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Robert Lepere, the commander at Station Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe >>