The weather, as the clock neared to ticking over to New Year’s Day in 2019, was pretty bad. Especially if you were spending it on a commercial fishing boat in the Atlantic off the coast of Rhode Island.
It got right woolly.
The rough seas, high winds, and limited visibility proved to be particularly tough in the area around Block Island that night, as the F/V The Mistress, out of Point Judith, discovered to her peril on her way back into port. She hit a patch of such nasty stuff that the boat began taking on water, and the captain radioed a distress call.
Then the unthinkable happened in those terrifying conditions. The 52-foot Mistress capsized.
…The Mistress, based out of Point Judith, sent out a distress call shortly after midnight on Jan. 1. The boat was operating in waters south of Block Island when it hit rough weather and began taking on water. The boat had a three-man crew: Capt. Oscar Diaz, Tim Diaz, Oscar’s son, and John Ansay, Oscar’s nephew.
The fishing boat Captain Bligh was the first vessel to respond to the distress call, and found and rescued Tim Diaz.
Only the captain’s son, Tim, survived, having been flung into the rigging for the nets as the ship flipped over. No trace of the other men or the vessel was ever found.
…The U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies searched for the ship and its two missing crew members for days, but the search was called off and the ship, along with the captain and another crew member, were never found.
A third person, the captain’s son, was saved by a nearby boat from a life raft, Green Oceans reported.
For seven long years, the whereabouts of The Mistress and her crew remained one of the Atlantic’s close-kept secrets, like so many mariners’ stormy deaths. But this summer, an ocean advocacy group called Green Oceans gathered a team of experts in all the oceanographic sciences to go looking for her for two reasons.
One was obviously in order to bring closure to the grieving Diaz and Ansay families.
The other was prompted after rereading the narratives of the attempted rescues and subsequent search efforts for the boat that night and in the following days.
Did the vessel’s proximity to the Block Island Wind Farm cause the search to be called off prematurely?
…Coast Guard records associated with the original search (MISLE Activity 6618087, Case1158048) describe the difficult conditions rescuers encountered.
A Coast Guard helicopter dispatched in response to mayday calls reportedly could not conductsector or parallel searches. The helicopter aborted its rescue attempt, returning after approximately 37 minutes. The records cite high winds, limited visibility, a low ceiling, and proximity to wind turbines as the hazards affecting the decision to turn back.
In late July, the Green Oceans team set out to see if they could locate the wreck and were simultaneously excited and horrified by what their experts discovered.
…Seven years later, a multidisciplinary team of marine professionals was assembled to search for and document the wreck. Side-scan sonar conducted on July 27, 2026, identified a wreck site. Scientific divers performed an underwater assessment on August 30, 2026.
The divers documented numerous features consistent with the F/V MISTRESS, including its propeller and shaft, fuel tanks, net drum, deck hatch, processing equipment, and other characteristics to support its identity. Final identification remains subject to confirmation by the appropriate authorities.
The wreck lies in approximately 92 feet of water and just 50 feet from the base of Block Island Wind Farm turbine No. 1. Its location raises significant questions about the original investigation, its search area, routine maritime operations near this offshore infrastructure, and media reporting at the time of the incident.
‘Apparent human remains’ were also observed by the Green Oceans team at the wreck site.
What, for all intents and purposes, appears to be the verifiable remains of The Mistress lies only fifty feet from the base of the No.1 wind turbine at the offshore farm and has rested undisturbed and ‘undiscovered’ for seven years.
…The wreck is about 50 feet from a turbine in the Block Island Wind Farm, Green Oceans said. Block Island Wind Farm is the first offshore wind facility in the U.S. and has been operational since 2016. The wind farm, where turbines stand at 600 feet tall, is estimated to generate enough energy to power 17,000 homes.
There are more questions than answers bubbling up out of the wreck’s discovery. One is whether wind developer Ørsted has known about the wreck all along and simply never revealed it, since detritus from the Mistress is actually leaning against one of the turbine pylons.
…There is no evidence the ship struck the easternmost turbine of the Block Island Wind Farm, where a private diving crew recently identified the sunken boat.
But the turbines forced the Coast Guard to abandon their rescue attempt in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2019, when the Mistress had taken on water during a sudden storm and the captain issued a mayday call.
“They had a helicopter there, and they had to let it go,” said John Ansay, whose son, John Ansay Jr., went down with the Mistress two days after his 31st birthday.
Mr. Ansay wants the Coast Guard to reopen the investigation into the missing vessel so that the bones discovered at the wreck can be retrieved and positively identified.
He wants to bring his son home. But Mr. Ansay also wants to know how Orsted workers did not see the wreck years ago, while conducting extensive underwater maintenance on the easternmost turbine in early 2019. The Mistress is resting 50 feet away from the base of the turbine, where Orsted began maintenance in April 2019.
An environmental group suing to block Orsted wind farms and other offshore wind projects is convinced Orsted discovered the location of the wreck next to one of its turbines long ago but didn’t report it.
“They had a maintenance barge, and they were working on it, and they had divers on it,” said Ben Riggs, a leader in the environmental group Green Oceans. “For them not to know that’s where it went down is very hard to believe.”
A sick-at-heart parent wants to know if the wind turbines that caused his son to be sacrificed to angry seas will cost other lives.
YOU GET IN THERE, THEY CAN’T COME IN AND GET YOU – THAT SHOULD NEVER, EVER HAPPEN
…In a report that followed the failed attempt to rescue the crew of the Mistress, the Coast Guard cited the Block Island wind turbines as one of several hazards that forced them to turn back.
The Coast Guard said low visibility, winds and rough seas also contributed to the aborted mission.
The ship went down in a storm with winds blowing at 40 knots and low visibility.
But the Coast Guard’s heavy-duty helicopters and highly trained crew routinely perform rescues in so-called heavy weather, said Bonnie Brady, policy director for the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association and past director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.
“That’s what they do,” Ms. Brady said.
She blames the Coast Guard’s failed rescue on the wind turbines, which cast “ghost images” on radar and create unpredictable wind shifts that, along with the turbines themselves, pose a hazard to hovering aircraft, particularly in inclement weather with low visibility.
The Block Island turbines are positioned in close proximity to each other, with only about a half-mile of space between them. The nearly 600-foot-tall turbines aren’t stationary. The 290-foot-long blades swivel and pitch according to the direction of the wind.
“We told them this was a dangerous thing,” Ms. Brady said, referring to commercial fishermen’s opposition to the wind farms. “We told them that search and rescue wouldn’t work. And it’s not just search and rescue for us commercial fishermen. Anybody on the water, whether you’re a pilot boat, whether you’re a tugboat, whether you’re a sailing boat with your family, or whether you’re a tanker, it doesn’t matter. You get in there, they can’t come and get you, and that should have never, ever happened.”
The Coast Guard helo had no choice – that’s obvious.
And you know it had to kill those guys to have to abandon a search in such desperate circumstances. The Coast Guard can pull damn near anybody out of anything in any weather. We have seen them do it time and again. 40-knot winds and low visibility are a good day at the beach for them
As the lady said, it’s ‘what they do.’
But they can’t do it with 600-foot towers around like a malevolent forest and 300-foot blades whirling in the misty air at 200 mph.
…Mr. Riggs, a retired Navy captain and aviator, said the winds, darkness, and the sinking vessel’s proximity to the wind farm left the Coast Guard without any choice but to abandon the mission.
“You’re talking about the most difficult environment you could possibly have to enter with a helicopter, and in addition to that, you have the blades changing position, and you don’t want to get hit by a blade that’s going 200 miles an hour,” he said.
What happens when it’s an airliner in the water? Or a ferry loaded with summer tourists?
Do they leave the bodies and wreckage they can’t recover in the water and hope some turbine-tower maintenance crew eventually notices?
…The FBI, Justice Department and Interior Department are investigating whether Ørsted concealed knowledge of the wreck’s location, according to Mr. Riggs and others with knowledge of the matter.
The Times reached out to all three departments.
“It’s a bigger issue than just the Mistress, but the Mistress is an example of what we’ve been warning about for a long time,” Mr. Riggs said.”
Green Oceans is asking for a reopened investigation.
The ‘lost’ fishing vessel Mistress hailing from Pt.Judith RI has been located after 7 years – just 50 feet away from Block Island Wind Farm turbine 1. pic.twitter.com/9Cimn3FGsx
— Green Oceans (@GreenOceansRI) September 23, 2026
A local station has a more in-depth video with the organization and family members here.
I hope they force some answers.
I’ve cataloged any number of these issues over the years and can only applaud every step taken to shut down the whole offshore show.
It’s also terribly sad, but I’m glad they found the fellows.
I wouldn’t wish any other family to have to go to bed knowing that your lost loved one should have been saved.
WE’RE SINKING RIGHT AT THE WIND FARM
Please reopen @USCG investigation to evaluate new evidence,@POTUS @VP @CommerceGov @USDOT @DOJ @SecRubio @RobertKennedyJr
RE:
“F/V Mistress captain Oscar Diaz made the call at 1:32 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2019. “Mayday, mayday, we’re sinking at the wind farm…right at the wind farm.” https://t.co/orrZLLFtj3 pic.twitter.com/HYDr8tIoAj— Barbara Durkin (@Barbarajdurkin) September 29, 2026
Or the rescuers knowing they could have, but…
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