Fisherman’s Disappearance at Sea Baffles His Friends

Tom Hefferan’s motto was “You can beat the sea unless you make a mistake,” and the 45-year-old angler was not the kind of person ever to make a mistake, his friends said.

These same friends, all members of the San Fernando Valley Saltwater Fishermen’s Club, cannot understand how the experienced fisherman, who is missing at sea and feared to be dead, fell victim to a boating accident last weekend.

“Of all the people I know, he was the last one I’ve ever thought would have a boat accident,” said David Vivirito, 50, president of the club and fishing partner of Hefferan’s for the past seven years.

Hefferan, who worked as the general manager of Valley Cab Co., and his son, Michael, 8, have been missing since Sunday when the boat they were on, The Sundancer, caught fire and burned to the waterline in the channel between Catalina and Long Beach. After combing a 6,700-square-mile area from San Diego to Los Angeles, authorities gave up the search. The body of his girlfriend, Martine Dusault, 32, of Van Nuys was found Tuesday about 12 miles away from where the burned yacht was discovered.

“He really believed that people only have accidents because they aren’t prepared,” Vivirito said. “He’d see an accident and he would always point out what they had done wrong. He would point at some guys and say they were asking for an accident.”

Hefferan’s friends called him “a fisherman’s fisherman” who set the club record earlier this year by landing a 226-pound tuna and whose face would light up any time the discussion turned to angling.

“He was really quite a fisherman,” club member Bennett Herrera said. “He’s not a careless guy just going out to get drunk and play. He was the most serious fisherman I know.”

The well-known angler was supposed to go on a charter fishing trip near San Diego with Herrera, Vivirito and several others last weekend, but at the last moment he backed out and decided to take his girlfriend and son out on a co-worker’s 65-foot yacht, The Sundancer.

“What a mistake,” Vivirito said. “If he had gone along with us none of this would have happened.”

Vivirito and the others decided to return to port Saturday evening after facing 60-knot winds.

At about 4 a.m. Sunday, the Coast Guard received a distress call from a boat, but radio contact was lost before the caller could identify the vessel or its location. The burning Sundancer was later reported to the Coast Guard when an airplane pilot saw the flaming craft.

The boat’s owner, Lloyd Conway, president of Valley Cab Co., notified authorities early Sunday when Hefferan did not arrive at Marina Del Rey as planned.

Vivirito was driving back from San Diego when he heard on the radio about a search for a missing boat.

“When I heard the name Sundancer, I thought ‘that couldn’t be Tom,’ ” Vivirito said. “It’s a common name. I was really hoping it was someone else.”

Later that day, Vivirito called Hefferan’s house and discovered that his friend was missing. He reacted with shock.

“His life was really the ocean,” Vivirito said. “If he had a choice to be on land or in the ocean, his choice was always the ocean.”

To illustrate his love for the ocean, friends tell of an October, 1987, fishing trip he took when his then-wife was expecting to give birth.

“I was out in the ocean with him when the Coast Guard called and said ‘Your wife is having a baby,’ ” Vivirito said. “So we turned around and went back to L.A.”

“He didn’t want to stop fishing quite yet,” said Herrera, who was also along. “But then he always wanted to keep fishing just a little longer.”