The recent fishing vessel tragedy in Gloucester comes as Marblehead remembers local fishermen lost at sea 50 years ago.
In the last days of January 1976, Marbleheaders Steven “Leroy” Haynes, 26, and Capt. Steven “Stevie” Goodwin, 31, died alongside Stephen Kelly, 32, of Newport, Rhode Island, and Candice Stuart, 21, of Newport and Sarasota, Florida, aboard the steel-hulled lobstering vessel, Zubenelgenubi.
The 60-foot craft, named for a quadruple star system in the constellation Libra, left Newport on Jan. 18 on what Goodwin described to his wife, Jo Anne, as a 10-to-12 day trip to move lobster pots from a spot 60 to 70 miles west southwest of the Nantucket Lightship to a new location about 80 miles to the west on Georges Bank.
During their voyage, the North Atlantic was hit by a pair of strong winter storms, the first pushing through January 27-28 and the second, known as the “Groundhog Day gale,” pounding the shore of Cape Cod with 100 mile per hour gusts…