Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Charter boat capsized out of Sitka

Former.

Ouch!

Are the Charters at Sitka mostly independent owner/operators that the lodges direct their guests to?

The missing Captain, Morgan Robidou has images on his Instagram site he posted last October and his comment posted with this image insinuates he'd just became the owner of this boat.



Just curious as to how the Charters and Lodges operate out there.

Mix of both. Depends on the lodge. In this case, I have read that he was an independent contractor.

You heard it was from pulling the anchor?

I have heard the breaker and whale theory.

Tough deal

Are there witnesses to what happened? Or are the rumors just speculative guesses?

The best evidence would be the anchor location, and how much was in the prop. Skipper is outside setting it when he goes overboard.

Just hard to imagine wanting to set the anchor in seas like that... or did it happen long before and the weather changed?

Everyone died.
No witnesses.

We'll have to wait for an updated CG report or a salvage company report for any possible clues as to what happened.

So I got a question for you Calvin.

You operate two charter boats now, right?

If you were heading out in rough weather, would you split up or stay in visual proximity? I understand splitting up on a calm day would give better odds of finding the fish and "the bite" on a given day.

Commericial guys I know speak of "coding partners" - which I believe means fishing buddies that are in the general area you are. If SHTF, you have help nearby.

Yeah 2. We stay close when it's nasty and offshore and I definitely err on the side of caution. Sitka is a lot different than my area though. Those guys are forced to go offshore in bad weather because of the LAMP area. No fishing for halibut or lingcod in sitka sound by charters. We have a pile of islands to get behind. Force the fleet outside in bad weather and something was bound to happen eventually.

There's going to be some questions about why they waited so long to alert the CG, that's for sure. The seas were not that big though. Boats anchor in that stuff all the time and this was a commonly fished area pretty much in sight of sitka. This is the first charter mishap that resulted in loss of life on this scale that i can recall. I bet operations will start rethinking things a little bit.

The Majestic Explorer hitting a rock by Brothers Island in I believe in 82 , with a Woman being killed when she was struck by a Life Raft being deployed is the last one I recall .

Was it just the skipper and the 4 customers?

I would have thought there would be a second man aboard to help the skipper.

I was thinking the same thing the other day but with 4 fishing I think the skipper was doing it all which would include setting and retrieving the hook. I have not heard about any other crew except the captain.

Yes; no deckhand.

I was thinking the same thing the other day but with 4 fishing I think the skipper was doing it all which would include setting and retrieving the hook. I have not heard about any other crew except the captain.
He was probably doing it all himself. I fished out of Elfin Cove for four years without a deckhand.

Anchoring a 30 foot boat in 6- 11 foot seas, no way...
Maybe the flame went out and the cap'n dropped the hook to keep it off the rocks.

Fishing in 6-11 foot seas no way.

Picture of the ill-fated vessel. Sitka Sentinel has a pay wall, which I cannot get past.

Yep.

Interesting on this other bit, from the Sitka Sentinel:

Troopers said salvagers who were at Low Island Thursday morning to recover the outboard engines from the Awakin spotted Robidou’s body in the water. They called the Coast Guard and Troopers, and around 11 a.m. Sitka Fire Department divers recovered the body, which has been sent to the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage.

Hanson Maritime said one of the two outboard engines from the Awakin was recovered Thursday from a depth of 20 feet near the place the sunken boat was found. It was delivered to the Coast Guard, which is investigating the sinking.