Mystery Solved? Wreck of the F/V Mistress Finally Found Off Block Island

When the F/V Mistress slipped beneath the Atlantic on New Year’s Day 2019, the tragedy felt almost immediate—two seasoned fishermen gone, families left in limbo, and a small Rhode Island community still searching for answers.

Fast forward to September 2026, and a team of volunteers from Green Oceans, the state‑based conservation outfit, believes they’ve finally located the missing hull. The discovery came not from a high‑tech sonar sweep but from a series of dives sparked by a handful of rust‑stained fishing gear that turned up near a Block Island wind‑farm turbine.

“It was one of those moments where you just sort of pause, you know?” said Maya Delgado, a veteran diver with the group. “We were looking at a tangled mess of rope and a broken mast, and then… the bow line of a boat just showed up, half‑buried in the sand.”

Experts say the wreck’s profile—its length, the angle of the propeller, and a distinctive brass nameplate recovered from the cabin— matches the Mistress, a 30‑foot gillnetter that had plied the waters between Newport and Long Island for more than a decade.

The boat’s disappearance had been a cold case for years. Coast Guard reports confirmed that a sudden squall had caught the vessel off guard, flooding the engine room and sending it to the bottom in less than an hour. Both crew members, identified only as “the skipper” and “the mate” in official records, were never recovered.

Now, with the wreck finally exposed, investigators hope to piece together the final moments more clearly. The site is being photographed and logged, and a small team plans to retrieve the boat’s logbook—if it survived the plunge.

Local families are reacting with a mix of relief and sorrow. “We’ve been waiting for closure,” said the sister of one of the fishermen, holding back tears as she watched footage of the dive. “Seeing the boat again, even in pieces, brings back memories, but at least now we can finally say goodbye.”

Green Oceans says the find also underscores the broader need for better tracking of small commercial vessels. “Technology like AIS isn’t required on boats this size, but maybe it should be,” Delgado added. “If something like this happens again, a simple beacon could save lives.”

The discovery has already sparked interest from maritime historians, who see the Mistress as a snapshot of a fading era of New England’s inshore fishing industry. For now, the wreck rests just a few hundred yards from the wind‑farm turbines, a quiet reminder that the sea keeps its secrets—until someone dares to look.