Community Corner

Search to Continue Wednesday for Cheshire Businessman Whose Boat Capsized [Updated]

Richard Fiske's capsized boat was found on the Housatonic River Monday afternoon.

Update at 8:16 p.m. Nov. 29:

Emergency crews have postponed until Wednesday morning the search for Richard Fiske, a 75-year-old Cheshire businessman whose scull row boat capsized Monday on the Housatonic River.

The original report follows:

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Emergency crews continue to search for a 75-year-old Woodbridge man whose scull row boat capsized Monday on the Housatonic River.

At this point, police said they do not expect to bring Richard Fiske out alive.

Find out what's happening in Cheshirewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"It is a recovery effort at this point," said Sgt. Ray Ramos of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection police.

Two boats combed the Housatonic River from the Stevenson Dam on the Oxford-Monroe line into Shelton near Indian Well State Park on Tuesday. As of 1:45 p.m., police had not found Fiske's body and didn't have much more information than they did on Monday afternoon, when news crews from all over the state flocked to the Oxford-Seymour line to get the latest news.

More than 50 firefighters from Derby, Newtown, Oxford, Seymour and Shelton responded on Monday but were called off scene just before 9 p.m. when state police postponed the search for the evening, indicating the effort had turned from a rescue operation to a recovery effort.

The search on Monday stretched far and wide along at least four towns in the Naugatuck Valley and included rescuers inside the water, all-terrain riders and walkers on the river banks and an air search by at least two helicopters, including one from the U.S. Coast Guard and one from the state police. 

Ramos said the water temperature on the river as of 9 p.m. Monday was 45 degree farenheight. At that temperature, he said, the Coast Guard estimates Fiske could have survived for about nine hours.

Police said Fiske was first reported missing at 2 p.m. on Monday, three-and-a-half hours after he signed out a scull boat from the New Haven Rowing Club on Route 34 in Oxford; but a DEEP official said someone saw the capsized boat about 1 p.m. but did not call it in at that point.

Fiske went into the water alone on the boat, and state police said Monday they believe he was wearing a floatation device around his waist. That type of device, police said, needs to be pulled manually in order for it to inflate and fully protect the person who is wearing it.

Police do not know if that device failed, whether Fiske had a medical issue that caused him to fall out of the boat or if it was something else that caused the boat to capsize. DEEP officials and state police are investigating this as an accident.

Fiske is the owner of . The company, which was formed by Richard "Dick" Fiske in 1963, has built more than 2,500 new homes throughout central Connecticut, including many upscale housing developments in Cheshire, Hamden, North Haven, Wallingford, Rocky Hill, Portland and Bethany, according to the company's website.

Fiske, an avid boater, is a member at the well-known boating club at 407 Roosevelt Drive in Oxford, according to Kyle Overturf, director of the State Environmental Conservation Police for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. His boat was found capsized right near the boat launch there where Fiske's friends and family gathered on Tuesday and consoled one another while waiting to hear more. 

Ramos, the DEEP official, said Tuesday that several volunteers are helping police and DEEP workers search the area.


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