A nonprofit is raising money to build a memorial to fishermen lost at sea off the coast of Provincetown and Truro.
This is the fifth attempt in 50 years at building a fishermen's memorial on the Outer Cape, according to Zoya Haq of the Provincetown Independent.
CAI's Gilda Geist spoke to Zoya to learn more.
Gilda Geist Can you please just give us a brief history of the many fruitless attempts over the years to build a memorial for fishermen lost to sea in Provincetown?
Zoya Haq The first time that we saw an effort like this to build a memorial for fishermen lost to sea off of Provincetown's and Truro's shores was in 1976 when a local scalloping boat, the Patricia Marie, sunk off of Provincetown shores with seven fishermen aboard. And in 1977, we saw a memorial committee convene to try and honor their memory and the memory of all the other fishermen who have been lost off of these shores, but unfortunately, that memorial committee wasn't able to drum up the funds needed for a monument. And there were three other committees before this current manifestation of the Fisherman's Memorial Foundation that was convened in 2024. They went through various designs for what the memorial could look like. Finally, in 2024, the new Fisherman's Memorial Foundation came up with a new design idea based off of a local Grand Banks dory model and has since focused on drumming up money to make this monument possible.
GG Tell us about the latest plans for the memorial and the local significance of the dory.
ZH The latest plan for the memorial is to enact a 3D-scanned bronze sculpture of a local Grand Banks dory on MacMillan Pier. So, the Grand Banks dory is kind of a historic boat in Provincetown. They're historic New England boats that were used off of our shores during the heyday of the fishing industry in Provincetown in the 1800s. So, they populate a lot of local paintings. They're really well known to fishermen around the Outer Cape. And historical accuracy—according to Lisa King, who's the founder of this current Fisherman's Memorial Foundation—was very important to the new committee. So, they hired a studio out in Minnesota called Brodin, which specializes in bronze public memorial sculptures. And basically, a scanner came out here to the Outer Cape to scan this red Grand Banks dory that is now located in the parking lot of Moby Dick's in Wellfleet. It formerly belonged to a local Provincetown artist who had had it made as a painting model because of that kind of history of the Grand Banks dory boat.
GG As you mentioned, the art studio that's been hired to do this memorial sent a designer out to Provincetown with one of those 3D scanners. What was that scanner used for, and how does that work?
ZH Basically, what the 3D scanner does is it meticulously scans the external and internal surfaces of a model, like this Grand Banks dory and maps it using a bunch of collected points to a digital diagram. And that digital diagram can then be adapted to different scales and used as kind of a basis or model for what's ultimately going to be a bronze sculpture. The cool thing about the kind of meticulous nature of the scanning process is that it really captures every nook and cranny and nail of whatever model it's scanning. So, the final product is going to be a bronze version that basically exactly translates this Grand Banks dory model into a wider memorial.
GG Just because this is radio and you just had such a great radio-friendly description of the 3D scanner, can you tell us what it looked like?
ZH Yeah, totally. So, it's kind of interesting. It's a little handheld scanner. It was white, has two eyes at the front with big circles. It almost looks to me like a little version of WALL-E, like the robot from the movies. And basically, there's a screen on the back of the scanner that the person scanning can look at as they collect all of these different points along the boat. And so, they're basically seeing the boat or whatever they're scanning come to life in front of them in the version of this digital scan, or digital diagram, that can then be used to scale it out and make it into an ultimate memorial or model.
GG As you reported, there have been so many starts and stops to this idea of having a fisherman's memorial in Provincetown. How sure are we that this is actually going to get built?
ZH You know, you can never be 100 percent sure, but to give some background on this specific memorial foundation in comparison to prior committees that have convened, they've managed to raise over $111,000 so far, according to their treasurer. And they received a town grant from Provincetown in April of $50,000, and then a state earmark just this month of $25,000 that was signed by Julian Cyr. And it's in the financial year 2027 budget for the state. So, money's definitely coming in. A contract has been signed with a 3D model company, and according to the foundation, a deposit is quickly incoming that'll secure the bronze materials needed to actually make this happen. What's next is continued fundraising to meet a goal of $350,000 that they've outlined for themselves. Once they meet that goal, then they're hoping to unveil the memorial in the next couple of years.
