NEWS & NOTES

On June 28, 2018, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) produced the final report on the capsize and sinking of F/V Destination, the crab vessel that disappeared last winter northwest of St. George Island in the Bering Sea, killing all six crew aboard. Last July, two NOAA vessels— Oscar Dyson and Fairweather— assisted the U.S. Coast Guard during the search for the missing boat. Dyson was able to narrow the search field allowing Fairweather to ultimately pinpoint the crabber in 256 feet of water using the ship’s advanced multibeam sonar.

Destination sank on February 11, 2017. No mayday call was made and no emergency beacon was activated to signal any problem on board. After the ship was located, a U.S. Coast Guard ROV was deployed to take pictures for an inquest following the accident.

For the report, the NTSB interviewed a number of captains who were operating in the area at the time. Forecast weather conditions for the night in question suggested that strong northeast winds, low temperatures, and building seas would create dangerous freezing spray that would accumulate on decks during routine crabbing operations. Most captains operating in the area felt compelled to adjust their course of business, but there was no such adjustment on Destination. According to the report, several other boats had accumulated significant amounts of ice, even at very slow speeds (1 to 2 knots), and one, the captain of F/V Silver Spray, decided that the forecast warranted holing up at St. George Island until conditions improved.

Another vessel in the area, F/V Polar Sea stopped four times for deicing efforts and indicated to investigators that ice accumulation levels were an “eight” (on a scale of 10). Ice accumulation during the last few hours that Destination remained buoyant were judged to be as high as 1.6 inches of buildup per hour. Newfoundland’s Memorial University modeled the day’s sea and weather data to gauge the probable ice buildup on Destination that resulted in her capsize and disappearance. The model suggests that in such conditions roughly 5,951 pounds of ice could have built up every 15 minutes.

Adding to the issues of the weight of ice, another captain in the report remarked that, in his opinion, Destination was carrying too many pots for the conditions and that the boat looked overburdened. The U.S. Coast Guard’s own Marine Safety Center (MSC) conducted a stability analysis of the boat using CAD-generated models from the boat’s 1992 rebuild, which indicated a number of other possible contributing factors in the sinking.

One of the potential issues identified was that while the vessel’s stability instructions booklet listed each crab pot as weighing 700 pounds, a pot recovered from the shipwreck by the Coast Guard actually weighed 840 pounds. The unaccounted-for weight of all 200 pots exceeded the vessel’s stability recommendation by 28,000 pounds. Specifications also limited the weight of bait held on board to just over 6,000 pounds, but shore receipts point to bait amounting to nearly 20,000 pounds when the vessel first departed Dutch Harbor. And lastly, the ship itself had been modified to include a steel plate added to the bulwark and a bulbous bow as well as other modifications that totaled about 3,366 additional pounds. Not including the substantial weight of ice accumulating on deck, the boat itself was laden with in excess of 45,000 pounds over the boat’s specified stability load.

The MSC analysis states the implications of this overburdening: “Vessels have negative stability when their righting arm is less than zero ... with 4 inches of ice, the Destination would have had negative stability at a heel angle

of 18 degrees, and with 7 inches of ice negative stability at a heel angle of only 8 degrees.”

The NTSB report summarizes the findings of the MSC’s investigation, concluding that “prolonged icing conditions adding weight high on the vessel, leaving it with a lower freeboard and a decreased righting arm (lower stability)” had likely caused the Destination to capsize in the high seas and winds it encountered that day. The NTSB further notes, “The AIS position data that indicated a rapid heading change as the vessel left the island’s lee support this capsizing scenario.”

The NTSB report concludes that “the probable cause of the capsizing and sinking of the fishing vessel Destination was the captain’s decision to proceed during heavy freezing spray conditions without ensuring the vessel had a margin of stability to withstand an accumulation of ice or without taking sufficient mitigating action to avoid or limit the effects of icing.” —JC

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Powered by two 9-volt batteries, the Emergency Phone Charger, can handle the duties of a powered outlet for as long as the batteries last (or as long as your supply of 9v batteries can go). In an emergency, this USB-powered device that looks about the size and shape of a cigarette lighter pulled from your car, will handle all of the duties of mobile phone charging if you have no other alternative. To charge, simply connect the two sets of battery leads (negative and positive) to fresh batteries, and then plug in your phone to the USB outlet. There’s even a little blue LED to indicate that the outlet is powered enough to charge. —JC

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