Police identify three fishermen who died after boat sank off northeastern Quebec

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Quebec provincial police have identified the three fishermen who died after their boat sank off of Quebec’s Lower North Shore early Monday morning.

Provincial police spokesman Sgt. Hugues Beaulieu said the three men were Yves Jones, 65, Dean Lavallee, 53, and Damon Etheridge, 36, all from Blanc Sablon, Que., about 1,300 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

He said the two men and one woman rescued after the Silver Condor sank are expected to survive. Beaulieu said police are no longer investigating the incident, adding that “it’s bad weather that caused the sinking.”

The deaths have rocked the community of around 1,100 people on Quebec’s eastern border with Labrador.

“The people of the Lower North Shore have been dealt a devastating loss,” I&S Seafoods, a seafood wholesaler in nearby Riviere-Saint-Paul, Que., posted on its company Facebook page. “Our fishing community mourns the loss of the Silver Condor, its captain Dean Lavallee and crew members Yves Jones and Damon Etheridge.”

Another fish seller, Pecheries Petit Havre in Blanc Sablon, said it would be closed while staff members mourned the loss of the crew, describing Etheridge in a post on Facebook as a “beloved team member and valued friend.”

Lt.-Cmdr. Len Hickey of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax said an Armed Forces rescue helicopter arrived on the scene a little less than four hours after a distress signal was received at around 2:30 a.m. and began recovering people from the water.

“The boat had already sunk before they arrived,” he wrote in an email.

Five people were plucked from the water by the crew of the CH-149 Cormorant and were transported to Corner Brook, N.L., he said.

Another individual was recovered by a Canadian Coast Guard vessel that arrived about half an hour after the helicopter. That person was transported to Port au Choix, N.L., Hickey said.

The Transportation Safety Board said it has been notified of the fatal sinking but has not decided whether a formal investigation will be opened.