Formerly Amanda Girl
As F/V Amanda Girl. [2009, Dunlap]
As F/V Amanda Girl. [2010, Dunlap]
As F/V Amanda Girl. [2010, Dunlap]
As F/V Amanda Girl. [2010, Dunlap]
As My Yot. [2014, Dunlap]
Updated on 3 September 2026 | Though it had a wood hull and the lines of a mid-century fishing vessel, F/V Amanda Girl (591984) was a remarkably contemporary boat; built in 1978 at St. Augustine Trawlers in St. Augustine, Fla. It was big, too: 66½ feet long — nearly the length of smaller schooners from the age of sail — with 98 gross tons. (That is, 9,800 cubic feet of interior volume, including all enclosed space; comparable to many schooners.)
Forty years after its keel was laid, Amanda Girl — by now called My Yot — was a wreck on the West End Breakwater. The sad story of its final years can be assembled through several contemporary accounts from the Provincetown Banner.1
As late as 2007, Amanda Girl was active in the fishery. It was owned by Justin Chick of New Hampshire, who held 13 commercial fishing permits for the vessel. Chick decided in 2008 to sell Amanda Girl and allow its permits to lapse. Technically, it was no longer allowed to dock at MacMillan Wharf, since it was no longer a working commercial fishing boat. But it remained there as Chick sold the vessel to Dennis Smith, an Army medic, reportedly for $1. Smith planned to move Amanda Girl to Lake Erie, but deployed to Iraq instead.
Richard Stotter, 48, appeared before Harbormaster Rex McKinsey in April 2009 to announce himself as Amanda Girl’s new owner. Unknown to McKinsey, Stotter was renting berths aboard the boat to three otherwise unhoused men, who each paid Stotter $50 a month. The harbormaster assumed the men hanging around the boat were workers who’d been hired to clean it up and move it off MacMillan. The illegal rental arrangement came to light on 18 April. Stotter got into a knife fight aboard Amanda Girl with 30-year-old Ian Gasunas, who was injured badly enough to need medical attention. Stotter was arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
By fall, ownership of the boat was transferred to Capt. Willis King, of Donna Marie and Cape Cod Seafoods. He set out to find a purchaser for the big fishing vessel, on behalf of Dennis Smith. No other local fishing boat owners were interested in a craft as large and unwielddy as Amanda Girl. E
tothree homeless men were living on the boat and paying Stotter $50 a week for doing so. This illegal arrangement came to light as the result of a knife fight
1 “Tale of Dubious Provincetown Fishing Boat Turns Twisted,” by Pru Sowers, Provincetown Banner, 1 May 2009; “Provincetown Pier May Get Stuck With Bill in Fishing Boat Conundrum,” by Pru Sowers, Provincetown Banner, 5 June 2009; “Sale Falls Through on Derelict Provincetown Fishing Boat,” by Kevin Mullaney, Provincetown Banner, 12 November 2009; “Former Amanda Girl Owner Garners 2nd Derelict Fishing Vessel in Provincetown,” by Pru Sowers, Provincetown Banner, 25 June 2010