THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604070069
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB HUTCHINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 162 lines
When the phone on the nightstand rang at 3 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving, Tony Penello knew it wasn't good news.
Calls to say you've won the lottery never come at 3 a.m.
The sea captain's fears were realized. The call was from the night security guard where his 90-foot commercial fishing boat was berthed.
``Come quick, Mr. Tony,'' the guard said. ``Your boat's on fire.''
Other than the death or injury of an immediate family member, nothing could have hammered any harder at the heart of the 66-year-old resident of Portsmouth's Sterling Point section.
The Anthony Anne represented his life's work. Heck, it practically represented his life.
He and two crewmen had worked on the boat until 6:30 the previous evening. They were nearing the end of a $12,000 refurbishing job on the boat at Norshipco's Southern Plant.
Firefighters finally extinguished the blaze just after 6 that morning. Outwardly, there was little damage to the black hull and white superstructure.
In the bowels, it was different. Miles of electrical wiring looked like blackened spaghetti. Generators, hydraulic pumps and just about everything else electrical were blackened ruins.
The lowest repair estimate was $219,000. Investigators said the fire was caused by faulty wiring.
But before he received any estimates - indeed, before the boat even burned - Penello knew how he wanted the Anthony Anne to wind up.
And so for the past several weeks, since the insurance settlement, he has been getting it ready for its final voyage. He's down to the final stages of stripping the boat: its four diesels have been removed, along with the fuel tanks, 5,400 gallons of fuel and almost everything else salvageable.
Some time this month the Anthony Anne will be towed down the Elizabeth River, past the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, past Cape Henry and the Chesapeake Light Tower, to its final resting place.
Somewhere between the tower, 14 miles east of the cape, and a series of wrecks known as the Triangles, about 30 miles out, the boat's anchors will be lowered and the sea cocks opened.
The Anthony Anne will become Virginia's newest artificial fishing reef.
Penello, as salty as the air he has breathed for almost 50 years, says it will be a form of payback for some of the fish he caught.
``I was a taker, always a taker,'' he said. ``I caught about as many fish as anyone. There were times when we could fill the hold with a load of 165,000 pounds in just a couple of days.
``So this is a way to sorta give something back. I'd rather do that than sell her. Hell, I don't need the money, although I could use it, like everyone else.
``When we were catching all those fish, we didn't know the damage we were doing, that some fish would be so scarce here in 1996. We all fished like there was no tomorrow. A lot of them still do. But there was a tomorrow and it's today.
``I just hope that, after she's on the bottom, every time a little sea bass that swims into her says, `This is the Anthony Anne. This is the boat that got my granddaddy.' ''
The son of a Sicilian immigrant who barbered on Crawford Parkway in downtown Portsmouth, Penello was 16 when he decided that he wanted to be a fisherman.
``There were boats landing their fish at the Fass Fish Co. on the Portsmouth waterfront then,'' he said. ``I used to hang around the docks, picking up a couple of bucks when they gave me a job.
``I learned that they were making pretty good money. You caught 'em and you sold everything you caught.''
In 1947, after graduating at age 17 from St. Joseph's, a former Catholic high school in Portsmouth, he signed on as a crewman on the ocean dragger Irene Y., owned and skippered by Abraham Yetman.
A Newfoundlander, Yetman sailed out of Portsmouth. Like the Anthony Anne, the Irene Y. caught fish by trawling, dragging its net across the bottom of the ocean.
After Yetman's death in 1958, Penello bought an interest in the boat. He sold out three years later to the Fass family.
Mortgaging everything he owned and borrowing from friends, he bought the Anthony Anne in 1961.
For 15 years, he concentrated on Georges Bank, off New England, where his primary target was redfish, sold at retail as ocean perch.
Since then, he has stayed closer to home, concentrating primarily on sea bass between New Jersey and North Carolina.
``I can't begin to guess how many pounds I've caught,'' he said. ``Millions and millions. There were years when it was normal to have a full load (165,000 pounds) in two weeks at the most, sometimes in two days.
``But the last time I came in with a load was 1980. It was croakers and they sold for 3 cents to 5 cents a pound.
``The Russians ruined our fishing until we chased their draggers and factory ships away in 1977 with the Magnuson Act. The Russians and scallop fishermen. I tried scalloping for a while. But it just tears up the bottom too much. It bothered me that I was hurting the environment.
``We finally got rid of the Russians, but the damage was done. And since then the government just hasn't done a very good job of managing what's left.''
The Magnuson Act gave the federal government exclusive control of all fishing between three and 200 miles of the nation's shores, with waters inside three miles the states' responsibility.
As fish stocks have continued to dwindle, Penello has fished less and less.
``I was getting older, for one thing,'' he said, ``and realized I hadn't spent enough time with my family.
``On top of that, the fish just haven't been there. Georges Bank is practically empty. Flounder are in bad shape. About the only thing left is sea bass, and they're getting scarce. Basically, I was a sea bass fisherman.''
Penello and the Anthony Anne made their last trip in April 1995. A two-week effort produced 10,000 pounds of bass, selling for $2 to $5 a pound, depending on size.
Fish were not all Penello caught.
When the scallop boat Snoopy blew up in 1965 after snaring a live torpedo , Penello recovered one of the bodies the following day.
``We called the Coast Guard and they told me it was my responsibility,'' he said. ``So I told them I was going to bring it in. It was the only moral thing to do.
``They told me to bring it to the base at Little Creek in Norfolk. But then they met me at the Little Creek jetties and wanted the body.
``I told them exactly what they could do. I had brought it that far and wasn't about to turn it over to them so they could be the big heroes.''
Another time, the Anthony Anne's nets landed a sealed coffin, apparently containing the body of someone who had been buried at sea. Holes had been drilled into the container so it would sink.
``That went right back to the bottom,'' he said, ``where it was supposed to be.''
On another occasion, they landed a missile.
``We didn't bother to see if it was alive,'' he said. ``We washed it right back overboard. There probably was a reward for its recovery. But I wasn't interested.''
Frequently, he couldn't resist the temptation to troll a lure or bait from a fishing rod.
He often caught enough to feed the crew of six to 10. He caught and released several white marlin and in 1968 boated a 36-pound dolphinfish. It was the largest taken in the state that year.
In recent years, Penello and the Anthony Anne have been active in research projects conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
He donated his boat and time to a five-year flounder-tagging project.
Thousands of Chesapeake Bay flounder were tagged to monitor their migration. His only compensation was for expenses.
Again, it was a way to give something back, he said.
What does the future hold for Penello?
``I'm in great health,'' he said, ``so I can't just quit. I already miss the excitement. I want to contribute, to keep on giving something back.
``I'd love to be a member of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. I know a lot about this business. I have something to contribute.''
And, he says, he is not through fishing.
``I have a 14-year-old grandson, Nick Scribner, who loves to fish with a handline (rod and reel),'' Penello said.
``He's a heck of a fisherman. I plan to spend as much time with him as possible.
``But I know I'll miss it. Hell, I already miss it, just like I miss the Anthony Anne. We were a part of each other.
``I don't mind admitting that I shed a few tears watching the firemen putting her out. And I've shed a few more while we've been stripping her.
``I always figured that we'd be together until she played out on me or I played out on her. But the fire rushed things along.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BOB HUTCHINSON
Even before Tony Penello's boat, the Anthony Anne, was ravaged by a
fire, he knew where he wanted it to end up.
by CNB