Captain's actions save two after boat fire at sea

Two days before he went out to sea, New Bedford fishing boat Captain John Verissimo and his crew of three painstakingly reviewed safety drills. Everyone knew his place and his duties. And when a fire broke out in the engine room of the 72-foot Enterprise 2 miles off Nantucket Tuesday night, Verissimo led his crew to safety quickly and efficiently.

"Everything was meticulously put into place, it was very quick," said Verissimo's sister, Gayle Freitas, in a telephone interview yesterday. "He just feels so bad that Billy's gone."

Verissimo, 37, got his crew aboard a life raft, from which a Coast Guard rescue jet, helicopter, and cutter recovered the four New Bedford-based fishermen and rushed them to Cape Cod Hospital. One crewman, 45-year-old William "Billy" Langisera, was dead on arrival.

Langisera's death was not caused by the engine room fire, but by a preexisting medical condition, according to Coast Guard officials. Langisera had epilepsy, said Freitas, who said she talked at length with her brother about the episode when he returned home late Tuesday night.

"He said, 'I just did my job, but I lost him,' " Freitas said. She said her brother, a 20-year fishing veteran, was too distraught to speak about the incident to a reporter. Langisera's relatives could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The death was the latest blow to the pained New Bedford fishing community, still grieving the recent loss of six fishermen. Five of the six New Bedford crewmen aboard the Northern Edge scalloper died when their boat was lost off the Nantucket coast five days before Christmas, and a few weeks later, on Jan. 20, Mark Farias, 38, fell from the Fairhaven-based Legacy without a life jacket 150 miles east of Cape Cod. Last Friday, the Coast Guard called off the search for Farias.

"The tragic loss of yet another New Bedford fisherman reminds us that every day our fishermen put their lives on the line to do their jobs and our prayers are with them," US Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement released yesterday praising the Coast Guard's response to the Enterprise's distress call. Kerry has asked the Coast Guard to investigate the Dec. 20 sinking of the Northern Edge because three of four helicopters, as well as a jet, suffered mechanical or weather-related breakdowns in the hours after the sinking.

The Coast Guard identified the other two survivors aboard the Enterprise as Shannon Pachecel and Jose Barbosa, both of New Bedford. Both were treated and released from Cape Cod Hospital shortly after 9:30 Tuesday night, said David Reilley, a hospital spokesman. Verissimo's black lab, Shadow, had been on board and survived, Freitas said.

The Coast Guard received a distress call from the vessel at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, and a Coast Guard helicopter was on scene within 18 minutes, said spokeswoman Kelly Newlin. The boat, owned by Enterprises Inc. of Cape May, N.J., is currently aground on the east side of Nantucket in 9 feet of water near San Katy Light, Newlin said.

Newlin said the owners have arranged a commercial salvage for the boat. The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office. Globe correspondent Cyra Master contributed to this report.