Deadliest Sea (31 page)

T
his book is a work of nonfiction. No scenes or characters have been invented. No names have been changed. The dialogue that appears in quotation marks is based either on recordings from the rescue, or, more often, the recollections of one or both of the people involved in the conversation. Thoughts attributed to individuals are based upon what that person later told me he or she was thinking at the time.

Throughout the book, I relied heavily on Coast Guard records from the rescue. There were several hours of audio recorded of the back-and-forth between the Communications Station in Kodiak and the
Alaska Ranger
. I also gained access to detailed search and rescue logs from the case, as well as written statements from many of the rescuers that were produced soon after the disaster. The joint Coast Guard/National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Marine Board of Investigation that followed the accident questioned dozens of people, and I occasionally relied on the transcripts of those interviews, as well as on other background documentation collected by the Marine Board. However, the vast majority of the scenes in this book are re-created from my own interviews with the survivors and rescuers involved in the case.

In some places, there were discrepancies in people’s memories, particularly about the order of events and the passage of time between events. In those cases, I have tried to sort out the best truth I could determine. The fact remains that
Deadliest Sea
is a re-creation of an extremely stressful and chaotic event. There were forty-seven people on board the sinking ship, and dozens more people who played an important role in the subsequent rescue. Each of those individuals has his or her own story, filled with many details that I have neglected to recount here.

Following is a chapter-by-chapter explanation of sources.

P
ROLOGUE

All of the communication between Coast Guard watchstander David Seidl and the
Alaska Ranger
is from audio recordings kept by COMMSTA Kodiak. I transcribed these recordings myself, and later compared my own transcriptions against those prepared by NTSB investigator Liam LaRue.

David Seidl submitted to repeated questioning and indulged my request to re-create the drive from his home in Kodiak to his Communications Station workplace. David’s supervisor, Adam Conners, operations officer Phillip Jordinelli and others at the Communications Station were also generous with answering many questions about the role of the facility.

Kodiak was the third most profitable U.S. fishing port in 2008, a rank that has remained consistent for several years. Each year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is part of the Department of Commerce, collects catch and profit data related to commercial fishing and makes that data available and sortable on its Web site at www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/commercial/index.html.

Air Station Captain Andrew Berghorn, Public Affairs Special
ist Kurt Fredrickson, and countless others in Kodiak provided helpful background information about the Coast Guard presence on the island—and throughout Alaska. National Marine Fisheries Service administrator Rob Swanson, who worked for years as a fisheries observer, also offered local insight and arranged a tour of one of Kodiak’s fish-processing plants.

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In Dutch Harbor, Charlie Medlicott and Christina Craemer provided invaluable local insight, as well as tour guide services. Brian Dixon, Paul Wilkins, Michelle McNeill, and Pastor Daniel Wilcox also each generously spent time talking with me about the Dutch Harbor community and/or fishing industry.

The Dutch Harbor fishing statistics are from NOAA data. New Bedford, Massachusetts, beats Dutch Harbor in terms of the total value of its catch (due mostly to the high price paid for East Coast shellfish), though in terms of total poundage harvested annually, Dutch Harbor is by far the most productive of any U.S. port.

Life on the
Alaska Ranger
was described in great detail by Eric Haynes, Evan Holmes, Jeremy Freitag, David Hull, Ryan Shuck, Kenny Smith, Alex Olivarez, Paul Munoz, Richard Reimers, and Julio Morales, among others. Further description of fishing practices came from the instructors at the Observer Training Center in Anchorage. The book
Ocean Treasures: Commercial Fishing in Alaska
(Alaska Sea Grant, 2003) also provided a helpful cross-check to information supplied directly by the fishermen.

The scenes involving former
Alaska Ranger
Captain Steve Slotvig are based on observations by the crew members mentioned above, particularly Jeremy Freitag, Ryan Shuck, and Kenny Smith, and by Marine Board testimony, including Slot
vig’s own. Under questioning from the Marine Board, Slotvig denied that it was the fight about ice that led him to leave the ship and said he could not recall the incident when others saw fish master Satoshi Konno spit at him.

Former
Alaska Ranger
Captain Richard Canty, now a tugboat captain who lives in Maine, also shared his experiences with the boat and FCA company culture.

A series of newspaper articles written by
Seattle Times
investigative journalist Hal Bernton provides further context on the Japanese influence on FCA vessels. Those articles can be accessed at http://www.seattletimes.com.

Friends and family of both Pete Jacobsen and David Silveira, as well as Captain Scott Krey and a number of crew on the
Alaska Ranger,
all confirmed that neither man was happy to be assigned to the ship.

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WO

The C-130’s role in the
Alaska Ranger
case was recounted by the two plane pilots, Lieutenant Commander Matt Duben and Lieutenant Tommy Wallin, and by Navigator Charles Helms.

The progression of flooding and preparation to abandon ship is based on interviews with Evan Holmes, Eric Haynes, Julio Morales, and Jeremy Freitag, as well as Marine Board testimony from each of those men and from Chris Cossich and Rodney Lundy.

The descriptions of Pete Jacobsen’s history are from interviews with crew members, as well as with his daughter Karen Jacobsen, his brother, Billy Jacobsen, his niece, Jennifer Jacobsen, and his late wife, Patricia Jacobsen, who passed away in early 2009.

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Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk pilots Lieutenant Commander Brian McLaughlin, Lieutenant Steve Bonn, Commander Shawn Tripp, and Lieutenant Commander Zach Koehler all patiently recalled their March 2008 deployment to St. Paul, as did flight mechanic Rob DeBolt and rescue swimmer O’Brien Starr-Hollow. In the winter of 2009, I visited the LORAN station and gleaned additional insight from the men on that deployment, among them Commander Robert Gaudet, Lieutenant Chris Carter, flight mechanic Keith Bastman, and rescue swimmer Alex Major. Commanding Officer Steven Pfister and Chief Jennifer Shafer were also helpful, as were so many more of the 2009 LORAN staff and Kodiak aircrew members.

Discovery Channel producers Rosie Sharkey and Kyle Wheeler provided additional insight about winter on St. Paul, as well as friendly chauffer service between the LORAN station and the village.

Lieutenant Commander Michael “Scott” Jackson tracked down some hard-to-find information about the history of Coast Guard predeployment to St. Paul, which began in 1997.

The statistics about the dangers of commercial fishing come from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). More information is available at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/fishing/. The crab-specific statistics were pulled from “Improving Commercial Fishing Vessel Safety Through Collaboration,” written by Chris Woodley, Jennifer Lincoln, and Charlie Medlicott and published in the spring 2009 edition of the Coast Guard Journal
Proceedings
.

Aquilina “Debbie” Lestenkof of the Ecosystem Conservation Office of the Tribal Government on St. Paul provided perspective on the history of the island and life there today. Marine
mammal researcher Andrew Trites, of the University of British Columbia, offered further scientific insight about the population of northern fur seals in the Pribilofs.

Public affairs staff members Natalie Granger, Angela Hirsch, and Ryan White at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C., were helpful in tracking down general Coast Guard statistics and historical facts, including those about the Coast Guard’s role during Hurricane Katrina and the number of Academy graduates now active in the Coast Guard.

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OUR

The spring 2008 crew on board the cutter
Munro
—including Captain Craig Lloyd, Executive Officer Mike Gatlin, Operations Boss Jimmy Terrell, Chief Luke Cutburth, Operations Specialist Erin Lopez, Corpsman Chuck Weiss, and Junior Officers Paul Windt and Dan Schrader—recounted the details of the
Munro
’s role in the
Alaska Ranger
rescue. In late February 2009 Captain Lloyd generously allowed me to ride along during the ship’s Bering Sea patrol. Crew members, including Ops Boss Brad Anderson and Junior Officers Andrew Brown, Ellen Moloi, Francesca Hanna, Caitlin McCabe, and the relentlessly helpful Crystal Hudak, were patient in answering my many questions about the ship, its crew, and its mission.

Coast Guard fishing vessel examiners Chris Woodley, Charlie Medlicott, Ken Lawrenson, and Marty Teachout provided an overview of the Coast Guard’s role in examining commercial fishing boats. Mike Rosecrans and Richard Hiscock provided expertise on the political and legislative history and directed me to a number of written sources, including Hiscock’s 2000 paper “Fishing Vessel Safety in the United States: The Tragedy of Missed Opportunities.” Also helpful were back copies of the Coast Guard’s
Proceedings
magazine; the report “Living to Fish, Dying to Fish,” produced by the Coast Guard’s Fishing Vessel Casualty Task Force in 1999; records from recent Congressional testimony about safety in the fishing industry; and Chris Woodley’s 2000 graduate thesis, “Developing Regional Strategies in Fishing Vessel Safety: Integrating Fishing Vessel Safety and Fishery Resource Management.”

Peggy Barry kindly recounted the painful details of her son’s death, as well as her family’s triumph in pushing for increased safety standards on board commercial fishing vessels. She also shared many years’ worth of newspaper clippings. The Coast Guard’s library file on the
Western Sea
sinking was a source of additional documentation, including the Coast Guard’s investigative report on the casualty, Alaskan police reports related to the incident, and autopsy results on Peter Barry and
Western Sea
captain Jerald Bouchard.

The decline in fishing deaths since the implementation of the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act in 1991 is documented by NIOSH and in the comprehensive Coast Guard report “Analysis of Fishing Vessel Casualties: A Review of Lost Fishing Vessels and Crew Fatalities, 1992–2007.”

Charlie Medlicott and Chris Woodley recounted their memories of the
Big Valley
sinking. Details of the boat’s loading condition were taken from the Coast Guard’s informal investigative report into the incident, which includes search and rescue records from the case, and from related documents prepared by the ship’s marine architect and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

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Leslie Hughes of the North Pacific Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association (NPFVOA) provided the 85 percent statistic for the amount
of Alaskan fish caught by Washington boats. That percentage was confirmed by the Seattle environmental group Natural Resource Consultants. NPFVOA also runs the safety training programs where FCA sent some of their crew members. Hughes helpfully described some of the historic safety problems in the fishing fleet and changes in safety attitudes over the years. Jerry Dzugan, director of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA), provided additional perspective that helped to inform the safety descriptions in this chapter and throughout the book.

Coast Guard Commander Chris Woodley provided many of ACSA’s founding documents. Further description of the program in its current form is available at http://homeport.uscg.mil/mycg/portal/ep/contentDetailView.do?BV_&contentType=EDITORIAL&contentId=99696.

The accounts of the
Arctic Rose
and
Galaxy
tragedies are based on interviews with Coast Guard fishing vessel inspectors and on the Coast Guard reports on the casualties. There was a Marine Board of Investigation for the
Arctic Rose
. That 134-page document is available at http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/docs/boards/Arctic%20Rose%20.pdf. Coast Guard personnel, as well as several NMFS fisheries observers, described the
Arctic Rose
as a ship with a poor reputation. The book
58 Degrees North
by Hugo Kugiya (Bloomsbury, 2005) recounts the boat’s disappearance and the Coast Guard’s extended investigation.

The Coast Guard’s similarly in-depth investigative report into the
Galaxy
fire can be accessed at http://marinecasualty.com/documents/gal.pdf.

There were a number of discrepancies in individuals’ memories of the order of events during the
Alaska Ranger
abandon ship efforts, particularly about the ship’s losing power, shifting into reverse, and listing to starboard. I believe the most likely
order is this one (and the NTSB’s report drew the same conclusion) though many people did not notice the shift into reverse until after the list, and others did not notice it at all. Several people, including David Hull, described a large wave that pulled the fishing net off the deck. Others thought it was simply the rising water that sucked the net off the ship.

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S
IX

Gwen Rains, Jayson Vallee, Christina Craemer, and Beth Dubofsky all told me about their experiences on FCA boats. NOAA fishery biologist and observer program administrator Martin Loafflad smoothed the way for me to sit in on the December 2008 training for new observers in Anchorage, where Mike Vechter and Dennis Moore provided an excellent overview of Alaskan fisheries and the job of fisheries observer. Amanda Saxton, Peter Risse, Rob Swanson, and Brian Dixon provided additional insight into the observer training requirements and the lifestyle of the typical fisheries observer.