A search is underway for five crew members of crabbing boat F/V Scandies Rose, which sank Tuesday night south of Sutwik Island, west of Kodiak.
Two crew members were air-rescued from a life raft near the vessel’s last known location, about 170 miles southwest of Air Station Kodiak. Another life raft in the area was found empty, said U.S. Coast Guard District 17 spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie. The crew placed a mayday call around 10 p.m. Tuesday, the Coast Guard said. McKenzie said she didn’t know what time the two crew members were found, or what their condition is.
McKenzie said investigators don’t know what might have caused the ship to sink. Efforts right now are focused on finding the remaining five fishermen, then an investigation will launch into causation. She said families of most of the crew have been notified.
McKenzie said the weather last night included winds in excess of 40 mph, 15- to 20-foot waves and one mile visibility. She didn’t know what the crew were fishing for.
The U.S. Coast Guard is using a Jayhawk helicopter and Hercules airplane to search a 300-square-mile area for the remaining five.
The Scandies Rose is a 130-foot steel crabbing vessel built in 1978.
Rescuers battled high swells, frigid temperatures and almost no visibility to save two crew members who survived the capsizing of their crabbing vessel in the Gulf of Alaska on Tuesday night, U.S. Coast Guard rescuers recounted.
A mayday call reporting that the F/V Scandies Rose was taking on water came in at about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday. The boat was south of Sutwik Island, west of Kodiak where it had departed.
Rescuers briefing media from Kodiak Wednesday night said they battled head winds up to nearly 60 mph as they flew west over the ocean, slowing the mission. When they arrived at about 2 a.m., visibility was almost nonexistent. A faint light was picked up through night vision goggles, and a medic was lowered down to find an empty life raft.
Then, the rescue crew saw another light about a half-mile in the distance. It was fixed to a second raft, this one carrying two men. The men were airlifted into the helicopter, where the medic discovered they were uninjured but “extremely hypodermic.” they were very f_uckin cold and soaking wet.
Lt. Chris Clark said had the men not been in the raft, they likely would not have been found.
Temperatures were about 10 degrees, and in the single digits with windchill. The men, 38 and 34 years old, had been in the raft for four hours but were found in good spirits
“Pretty much every variable weighed against both parties” said Lt. Kevin Knaup, who co-piloted a HC-130 Hercules airplane used in the rescue. “Everything was working against being able to find these two people.”
Coast Guard officials have not released the names of the rescued men, or the missing crew members.
Rescuers said there was no sign of the sunken ship or the remaining five crew members. Running out of fuel, the rescue helicopter returned to Kodiak while a plane continued to search.
The men were rescued about 10 miles from the last known location of the Scandies Rose, which was about 170 miles southwest of Air Station Kodiak. Rescuers said they will continue the search for the remaining members as long as they are instructed to by the U.S. Coast Guard District 17 command center.
The rescued fishermen were wearing survival suits to help them endure the elements, stay afloat and be located. They told rescuers they were the only two who made it into a raft, and they didn’t know if their fellow crew members got into survival suits.
Knaup said the elements made the rescue extremely challenging, and said such a mission is “very unique in Alaska.” When a distress call comes in from a vessel, it tends to be a very real emergency, he said.
Much information about the sunken ship has not been released. Only the rescuers took part in Wednesday’s media availability, and said they didn’t know if the crew members were interviewed after the rescue. They did not speak to any evidence pointing to what caused the large steel ship to sink.
Earlier in the day, Coast Guard spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said efforts are focused on finding the remaining five fishermen, then an investigation will launch. Crews are searching a 300-square-mile area in hopes of finding the remaining crew.
The rescuers said they didn’t know where the vessel was headed, or if it was loaded with gear. Dan Mattsen, part owner of the boat, told the Seattle Times that the boat had a load of crab pots and was headed from Kodiak to the Bering Sea.
News about the Scandies Rose spread rapidly through the tight-knit commercial fishing community Wednesday. Facebook pages for other crabbing vessels posted in support of their sunken sister boat.
Fisherman Jon Ramlo found out when he logged into Facebook around 9 a.m. from Killeen, Texas, where he lives when he’s not out at sea. Ramlo got into the industry in 2016, working to unload ships’ catch onto a processing dock when they come to harbor.
“We’re all trying to play detective here. I’ve been getting a lot of messages,” said Ramlo. "Nobody really knows what the hell happened.”
“That was the first boat I ever stepped foot on,” Ramlo said of the Scandies Rose.
Ramlo said he knows the captain and the two rescued men. He said his heart sank when heard the news. His phone buzzed all day, as he connected with others in the community hoping for some good news.
Last edited by JeffA; 01/02/20. Reason: correct terminology/ strike “extremely hypodermic.”
Then, the rescue crew saw another light about a half-mile in the distance. It was fixed to a second raft, this one carrying two men. The men were airlifted into the helicopter, where the medic discovered they were uninjured but “extremely hypodermic.”
I feel bad for laughing at such a sad story... but?
Mark Begich, Joaquin Jackson, and Heller resistance... Three huge reasons to worry about the NRA.
CG search for the 5 missing crew has been suspended. May they Rest In Peace.
Seems really quick to suspend, but conditions are bad and an empty raft gave them little chance. Some are probably stuck in their bunks.
Information from the two survivors may have had something to do with that......
And speaking of the two men the Coast Guard rescued...
These Coasties are one hell'ova breed. 2 AM in the black of night they manage to locate and pluck these two guys outta the water! Sure they knew they were 170 miles southwest of Air Station Kodiak and they probably had the last known coordinates of the vessel, but damn!
From the few facts known, they found them 10 miles from where the boat last reported being. Talk about a needle in a hay stack x100....
10 degrees, 60 mph winds and some medic snaps on and drops down to start checking the life rafts they found. That guy has balls! Helicopter struggling to maintain location and elevation and this guys gonna get out in black dark schitty conditions and drop down on a wire.
Then, the rescue crew saw another light about a half-mile in the distance. It was fixed to a second raft, this one carrying two men. The men were airlifted into the helicopter, where the medic discovered they were uninjured but “extremely hypodermic.”
I feel bad for laughing at such a sad story... but?
I frequently check the nullschool site to see what winds are doing to our weather and the North Pacific has been wild for weeks.......incredible storms common to that area.
Then, the rescue crew saw another light about a half-mile in the distance. It was fixed to a second raft, this one carrying two men. The men were airlifted into the helicopter, where the medic discovered they were uninjured but “extremely hypodermic.”
I feel bad for laughing at such a sad story... but?
You're just needling them now.....
I get the point. Injecting a little humor?
If you take the time it takes, it takes less time. --Pat Parelli
American by birth; Alaskan by choice. --ironbender
Wow what balls to go out in those conditions, in the first place, then the guy snaps on and rides the wire in 60 mph winds while the chopper duck and dives to try to keep on target. The guy on the rope is being buffeted about, the chopper is being tossed about and the raft is being thrown about on the waves. Holy crap what a rescue.
Then, the rescue crew saw another light about a half-mile in the distance. It was fixed to a second raft, this one carrying two men. The men were airlifted into the helicopter, where the medic discovered they were uninjured but “extremely hypodermic.”
I feel bad for laughing at such a sad story... but?
You're just needling them now.....
I get the point. Injecting a little humor?
Well played... x2
Mark Begich, Joaquin Jackson, and Heller resistance... Three huge reasons to worry about the NRA.
I frequently check the nullschool site to see what winds are doing to our weather and the North Pacific has been wild for weeks.......incredible storms common to that area.
How much snow have you got in DJ?
Mark Begich, Joaquin Jackson, and Heller resistance... Three huge reasons to worry about the NRA.
They released the names of the missing men. There was the captain, Cobban, his son David Lee Cobban, crew members Arthur Ganacias, Brock Rainey and Seth Rousseau-Gano. The two survivors were Dean Gribble Jr. and John Lawler.
I'd had worked with John Lawler a few seasons, he captained the Sea Falcon for salmon in Bristol Bay for a couple years. I didn't know he was on the Scandies Rose this season until I started getting emails after they sank.
Dean Gribble posted these few words about the event to YouTube last night...
Battling the waves to stay alive: A tale of survival from the Scandies Rose
The Scandies Rose, Alaska in 2019.
New Years Eve 2019 Waves filled the life raft with chest-deep water, and at times threatened to flip it. The light atop a canopy was supposed to help rescuers spot them in the night, but it had gone out.
For John Lawler, the only encouraging thing was a glow from a second life raft about a quarter-mile away. He hoped that light would stay on, and someone would find him and crewmate Dean Gribble Jr. in the pitch-black aftermath of Scandies Rose crab boat going down in the Gulf of Alaska.
“We would lose sight of it because the waves were so big, but it would always reappear, ” said Lawler, a 34-year-old crabber from Anchorage, Alaska.
John Lawler was aboard the Scandies Rose for the first time, when disaster struck.
Lawler and Gribble, of Edmonds, were veterans of the Alaska crab fleet. They were on their first trip aboard the 130-foot Scandies Rose, which left Kodiak, Alaska, on Dec. 30 with a crew of seven and went down around 10 p.m. Dec. 31. They also were the only two survivors, with the other five lost at sea: The captain, Gary Cobban Jr., 60; his son, David Cobban, 30; Seth Rousseau-Gano, 29; Brock Rainey, 47; and Arthur Ganacias, 50.
Lawler offered the most detailed account yet made public of what it took to survive a sinking that left him and Gribble adrift in 20-foot seas for four hours. Lawler said he did not want to comment on why the boat may have gone down.
On the night of Dec. 31, Lawler was asleep in his bunk when he was awakened by the boat listing hard on its starboard side. Though no emergency alarms were sounding, Lawler, who has been crabbing since 2010, was certain the the boat was in grave danger of sinking.
Lawler and other crew rushed to the wheelhouse as the captain relayed a radio call about the imperiled Scandies Rose to another skipper, then got off a mayday distress call.
By then, the boat was listing so heavily that Lawler had to climb to a box that contained insulated survival suits, which offer protection from the chill sea. He knew from training that he typically took a medium. He grabbed a bigger size, green in color, to make sure he could put it on quickly. Yet once it was on, the zipper jammed at the bottom, and Gribble spent anxious moments helping Lawler pull it all the way up.
Lawler said he and Gribble, with difficulty, made their way out of the wheelhouse as the vessel rolled more. They found themselves standing on the boat’s side. They hoped other crew would follow. But they did not see anyone leave the wheelhouse.
“Dean and I both wish everyone else would have made it to the life raft with us. We both wish there was more time. But it was out of our hands. We got out of the door, and that’s all we could do,” said Lawler, who also said he wanted to convey his condolences to the families of those lost.
Gribble, in a video posted last week and then taken off public view, also expressed sympathies to his crewmates’ families.
Once the two men were outside of the wheelhouse, Lawler said, an alarm went off.
Lawler said he gripped a scupper — an opening on the boat’s side — to try to hang on. Even though he was standing knee-deep in water, he thought the Scandies Rose might retain air pockets that would keep it afloat.
But a big wave knocked Lawler and Gribble off the boat.
Once in the water, they tried to use a piece of line to stay together but it tangled around their feet. They abandoned that effort.
As Lawler drifted away from the Scandies Rose, he recalls an awful final sight of the boat.
“We saw the bow sticking up like a scene out of the Titanic,” he said.
Two life rafts inflated and floated free from the boat as it sank. And after some 20 minutes bobbing about in the ocean, Lawler recalls looking over his shoulder and seeing Gribble in one of the rafts.
“He yelled, ‘Johnny,’ and I swam as hard as I could to get to him … and pulled myself in,” Lawler recalled. “I felt like the weight of a feather getting into it. It was my adrenaline pumping.”
Dean Gribble Jr., one of two survivors
In the raft, they faced another battle for survival.
They went to opposite sides to make the raft more stable. It was covered with a canopy, and Lawler sat beside a flap door. He would peek outside to scout for the next big wave to slam over the craft.
“I would yell, ‘here comes another,’ and we would brace ourselves to keep from flipping over.”
They did not have a locator beacon to send signals that could enable rescuers to track their position, Lawler said. They sent off some flares but there was no sign anyone saw them.
Lawler did not think they would be found. The chances seemed more remote when the dome light on top of the canopy went out. Still, Lawler could occasionally catch sight of the light on the second life raft as it drifted some distance away.
The two men tried to keep their spirits up. They noted how different their New Year’s Eve was from those they had in the past. Gradually, they became colder, and quieter. Lawler could not help but focus on his wife and unborn child.
“We both had the same thought. We thought we were dead. But at least our families would recover our bodies,” Lawler said.
But sometime before 2 a.m. New Year’s Day, Lawler noticed something different about the second life raft. He saw a second light — at sea level — close by its side. Maybe help was near.
Lawler thought his mind might be playing tricks on him. But maybe not.
He found a flashlight in a bag in the life raft and waved it back and forth. He made hand signals.
Then, the light next to the other life raft moved up into the air.
The light was fastened to a swimmer set down by a Coast Guard helicopter crew.
The swimmer had found that raft empty and was moving on.
The helicopter soon hovered over the raft that sheltered Gribble and Lawler.
Rescue was at hand.
Scandies Rose co-owner says loss of crab boat was ‘a nightmare’
Dan Mattsen went to bed Dec. 31 with his fishing boat, the Amatuli, finally snug in port in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, after a three-day trip through difficult seas. He wished a happy new year to his wife back home in Bremerton, then retired to his cabin.
He woke up the next morning to horrendous news, broken through text messages of condolence on his cellphone. The Scandies Rose — the crab boat boat he co-owned — had gone down in rough seas off the Alaska Peninsula. Of the seven crew, two had been rescued and five were lost, including the captain, Gary Cobban Jr., his longtime friend and business partner.
“I first thought, this can’t be true. Not the Scandies Rose and not Gary … It was mind-numbing … a nightmare, ” Mattsen recalled in an interview Monday in Bremerton. He has struggled along with investigators from the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to understand what went so terribly wrong after the 130-foot vessel left Kodiak, Alaska, to start a new winter season in the Bering Sea.
Mattsen during the past week has reached out to the families of the survivors. He also has answered hours of questioning from investigators about the accident, which came in a difficult stretch of water amid 20-foot seas. A marine forecast for the area called for heavy freezing spray, which can coat a boat with ice that can dramatically reduce stability.
Mattsen and his boat had begun their voyage in Kodiak, leaving several days earlier than Cobban. He recalls how Cobban, whose father also was a Kodiak-based crabber, was eager for the new season, when the boat would have the harvest rights to some 600,000 pounds of snow crab. Cobban, 60, had been in Kodiak to rework some gear, and planned to conduct a brief fishery for cod that he would use to prospect for the best spots to catch crab.
“Gary has been running boats since he was about 16 years old … and he’s been running larger boats probably since he was 20 or 21,” Mattsen said.
Mattsen said he had exchanged radio messages with Cobban on New Year’s Eve, the day of the sinking.
“He just said the weather was crappy and my weather was crappy, too. I mean, I was just kind of doing typical captain commiserating,” Mattsen said.
Coast Guard interviews with the two survivors indicate that when disaster struck, the younger Cobban was in the wheelhouse sending out a mayday distress call, according to Mattsen. It is unclear whether he or any of the other missing crew had time to get into survival suits and evacuate the sinking vessel, which rolled on its side and then went down stern-first.
Gribble, in a YouTube video posted last week that was later withdrawn from public view, talked about issues with safety equipment. He noted that an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) failed to go off to signal the vessel’s position.
Mattsen said the safety gear met regulatory standards. He said the EPIRB goes off as it pops to the surface, and might have got caught underwater as the vessel sank.
“Clearly emotions are running raw,” he said. “I am very happy he [Gribble] made it. Our crew is family.”
The Scandies Rose has long been a workhorse of the Alaska crab fleet. It was built in 1978, and since Mattsen and Cobban took over ownership of the vessel in 2008, it has been brought to Seattle each year for maintenance and pulled out of the water every other year for additional work, according to Mattsen.
The Scandies Rose sinking comes less than three years after the Feb. 11, 2017, demise of another Alaska crab boat — the Destination, which sank in the Bering Sea, killing all six crew amid treacherous conditions that included freezing spray.
A Coast Guard investigation that concluded in 2019 found that the Destination’s pots were heavier than assumed by the captain, and could have thrown off stability calculations. The Coast Guard also found that an on-board booklet to guide the loading was out of date.
Mattsen said he and Cobban tried to learn from the Coast Guard findings about the Destination as they prepared the Scandies Rose for the 2020 harvests.
Last spring, they weighed the Scandies Rose pots and found they were significantly heavier than previously thought. That prompted a revision in the loading booklet to prevent the vessel from carrying too much weight as pots were stacked on deck at the beginning of the harvest seasons.
Mattsen said reports indicate the Scandies Rose was carrying no more than 195 pots as the vessel left Kodiak. That was below the 208-pot limit allowed in the loading booklet, he said.
In the months ahead, Coast Guard and NTSB officials will continue to investigate the sinking.
“We want to know what happened because if the Scandies Rose can sink in these conditions, any crabber can,” Mattsen said.
Knowing little about the subject, admittedly, but it seems to me wind driven freezing spray is the most likely culprit, with more build-up on the windward side. It sounds like the list was progressive.
Above deck load shifting or a leak below deck are also possibles. I can't think of any other potential causes, offhand.
Ill touch on some elements of the above article. In short the boat was very poorly run by a captain who was derelict in his responsibilities.
"Though no emergency alarms were sounding."
That vessel is required to have audible and visual high water alarms in each compartment that has through hull penetrations. Testing the alarms is required every 30 days and is advised prior to each trip.
"Lawler and Gribble, of Edmonds, were veterans of the Alaska crab fleet. They were on their first trip aboard the 130-foot Scandies Rose."
Laws require a thorough safety orientation of new crewmembers.
"Lawler and other crew rushed to the wheelhouse as the captain relayed a radio call about the imperiled Scandies Rose to another skipper."
Had they received their crew orientation, they would have executed their emergency assignments. Those emergency assignments would not have put them in the wheelhouse. Had they received that orientation, part of it would have been to have demonstrated what the high water alarms sound like.
"insulated survival suits, which offer protection from the chill sea. He knew from training that he typically took a medium."
In the orientation they should have been shown "their" survival suit. They should have donned it, removed it and stowed it in a bag in a way where theirs could not be mistaken for another crewmembers.
“I would yell, ‘here comes another,’ and we would brace ourselves to keep from flipping over.”
The liferaft has a full ballast. It ain't going to flip over. With proper training they would have known that. How can "veterans" not know this.
"Coast Guard interviews with the two survivors indicate that when disaster struck, the younger Cobban was in the wheelhouse sending out a mayday distress call, according to Mattsen."
If he was in the wheelhouse making a distress call, he should have sounded the ship's general alarm to notify the crew to they were experiencing an emergency.
There's more. That's just some quick observations. Almost every commercial fishing vessel captain I know skimps on orientation and training.
Ill touch on some elements of the above article. In short the boat was very poorly run by a captain who was derelict in his responsibilities.
"Though no emergency alarms were sounding."
That vessel is required to have audible and visual high water alarms in each compartment that has through hull penetrations. Testing the alarms is required every 30 days and is advised prior to each trip.
"Lawler and Gribble, of Edmonds, were veterans of the Alaska crab fleet. They were on their first trip aboard the 130-foot Scandies Rose."
Laws require a thorough safety orientation of new crewmembers.
"Lawler and other crew rushed to the wheelhouse as the captain relayed a radio call about the imperiled Scandies Rose to another skipper."
Had they received their crew orientation, they would have executed their emergency assignments. Those emergency assignments would not have put them in the wheelhouse. Had they received that orientation, part of it would have been to have demonstrated what the high water alarms sound like.
"insulated survival suits, which offer protection from the chill sea. He knew from training that he typically took a medium."
In the orientation they should have been shown "their" survival suit. They should have donned it, removed it and stowed it in a bag in a way where theirs could not be mistaken for another crewmembers.
“I would yell, ‘here comes another,’ and we would brace ourselves to keep from flipping over.”
The liferaft has a full ballast. It ain't going to flip over. With proper training they would have known that. How can "veterans" not know this.
"Coast Guard interviews with the two survivors indicate that when disaster struck, the younger Cobban was in the wheelhouse sending out a mayday distress call, according to Mattsen."
If he was in the wheelhouse making a distress call, he should have sounded the ship's general alarm to notify the crew to they were experiencing an emergency.
There's more. That's just some quick observations. Almost every commercial fishing vessel captain I know skimps on orientation and training.
”I would yell, ‘here comes another,’ and we would brace ourselves to keep from flipping over.”
The liferaft has a full ballast. It ain't going to flip over. With proper training they would have known that. How can "veterans" not know this.
I’m not sure. I have never been in a life raft in 20 footers pushed by a 40 knot breeze - in the gulf, at night.
I think your certainty that said ballasted raft wouldn’t flip over might depart rather quickly in the above conditions - especially if a few of those 20 footers had a steep face or were breaking.
I am not sure about rafts flipping at sea. I have been trying to avoid ever ending up in one. I have never heard mentioned that the rafts couldn’t flip over though in the training i have had though. Like I said I have righted a raft solo while wearing a gumbie.
Gary was running for cover, they were listing due to ice build up not water in the hull. The winds and the waves were too severe to put the crew on top of the pots to sledge hammer the ice.
As Dean Gribble states in his video, "everyone was doing everything they could".....
"Does any one know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours? The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay If they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters"
Gary was running for cover, they were listing due to ice build up not water in the hull. The winds and the waves were too severe to put the crew on top of the pots to sledge hammer the ice.
As Dean Gribble states in his video, "everyone was doing everything they could".....
"Does any one know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minutes to hours? The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay If they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters"
Sounds like time to dump pots but if conditions don’t allow you to de-ice they’d likely hamper dumping pots. I guess it comes down to risking 1 or 2 lives for the rest of the crew and vessel.
Sad situation but it highlights the heroics of our Coast Guard. Thank God for their bravery and competence.
�Politicians are the lowest form of life on earth. Liberal Democrats are the lowest form of politician.� �General George S. Patton, Jr.
I am not sure about rafts flipping at sea. I have been trying to avoid ever ending up in one. I have never heard mentioned that the rafts couldn’t flip over though in the training i have had though. Like I said I have righted a raft solo while wearing a gumbie.
As you know, there are no absolutes, but the ballasted rafts have been tested in extreme conditions without flipping.
A: The liferaft has four 55 l quick filling, weighted ballast bags attached beneath, providing maximum stability and preventing capsizing in heavy seas. The oversized openings around the top and the sewn in weights allow the bags to fill quickly creating immediate stability.
Q: If we are only two people in an 8-person liferaft, will it flip over?
A: No. The ballast bags and sea anchor provide stability.
Cannot imagine being in my bunk when things were that dicey... or icy.
You or I either one...
Lawler and Gribble say they woke due to the boat taking on a severe list, it's not stated as to what the rest of the crew was doing prior to that.
For those that have been involved in the industry very long and fortunate enough not to have been directly involved in a Coast Guard investigation where a death has occurred have surely been close enough to one to know few facts surface before all active investigations are completed. The story will be public in about a year.
Originally Posted by AcesNeights
Sounds like time to dump pots but if conditions don’t allow you to de-ice they’d likely hamper dumping pots. I guess it comes down to risking 1 or 2 lives for the rest of the crew and vessel.
That'd be a hard call to make.
From just the information in these news reports it been stated that the captain commented on having a list and seeking a sheltered area when he was speaking to his friend on the phone.
It "appears" that the list went from dicey to severe all in one wave which woke Lawler and Gribble. While they were scrambling to get into survival suits and out of the wheel house they rolled further yet, another big wave?
After that, once out on the deck, yet another wave knocked both of them off the boat.
Maybe the rest of the crew were scrambling to try to save the boat?
I can't help but think back to the story of the men that lost their lives when they did abandon their distressed vessel shortly after leaving Kodiak. (Nights of Ice, Working on the Edge?) One or two of the men survived and were looking at their swamped but floating boat the next morning after the sun came up.
So sad to hear. I spent 12 years commercial fishing up there, and I can assure you that things can go bad out there way faster than you can react to them. No matter what you read, or watch on TV, you'll NEVER understand until you actually go do it... year after year, season after season.
It "appears" that the list went from dicey to severe all in one wave which woke Lawler and Gribble. While they were scrambling to get into survival suits and out of the wheel house they rolled further yet, another big wave?
The icing obviously changes the center of gravity and righting moment. The heavy sea state obviously confounded the stability issues.
And speaking of the two men the Coast Guard rescued...
These Coasties are one hell'ova breed. 2 AM in the black of night they manage to locate and pluck these two guys outta the water! Sure they knew they were 170 miles southwest of Air Station Kodiak and they probably had the last known coordinates of the vessel, but damn!
From the few facts known, they found them 10 miles from where the boat last reported being. Talk about a needle in a hay stack x100....
10 degrees, 60 mph winds and some medic snaps on and drops down to start checking the life rafts they found. That guy has balls!
Helicopter struggling to maintain location and elevation and this guys gonna get out in black dark schitty conditions and drop down on a wire.
Hats off to them!
Definately need to give these rescue guys props.
I remember an epic story from the Sitka Air base from a ways back - prolly the Loran days. Similar situation (probably not 10 degrees air temp). Helo trying to find the needle in the haystack. Down to the minimum fuel required for a safe return. Find the guys in the water as the clock is running out. Someone must remember than story?
And don't forget the guys who keep the equipment running in top condition. Anyone remember poster BW (Brian Womack). He used to post here. I know he was an A&P guy at the Sitka Base. Think he had to go the the sand box.
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