COMMERCE
Subscriber Services
Classified Ads
Subscribe
Advertise
NEWS
This Month
Editorial
Letters
F/V Safety
Past Issues
ABOUT US
Contact Us
Latest Issue
Subscribe
History
MORE CONTENT
CFN Archives
Links
Each month exclusively in the PRINT edition of CFN
Along the Coast
Ask the Lobster Doc
Bearin’s
Classifieds
Coming Events
Editorial
Enforcement Report
FISH SAFE
Fleet Additions
Letters
Lobster Market Report
New Boats
News Catch
Quahog Market Report
|
Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 7
March 2008
Lady Luck: Life raft weak link failed
This column is written in memory of our fishing colleagues Capt. Sean Cone, 24, and Dan Miller, 21, who perished on the night of Jan. 31, 2007 while heading from Portland, ME to Newburyport, MA aboard the Lady Luck. It is also to take action on the recommendation of the Coast Guard commandant to increase industry awareness about the installation and purpose of safety gear.
The final report on the loss of the Lady Luck seeks an explanation for the sinking of the vessel. Three possibilities were considered: ship strike/collision; flooding; and capsize.
Shipstrike/collision was ruled out because the Coast Guard investigation showed no “large vessel traffic in the area of the sinking over a period of time.”
Flooding was deemed unlikely but possible – unlikely because “engine room flooding would have been gradual … would have activated the bilge alarm … and … would have impacted the performance of the vessel enough for the crew members to investigate.”
Flooding was considered a possibility because several surveys had cited leaky rudder post packing and a corroded lazarette cover. However, there was no more recent information available to suggest that the lazarette hatch was or was not watertight.
That left capsize as the most probable reason for the sinking. No stability report had ever been conducted on the 52' steel-hulled dragger. In fact, only vessels over 79' are currently required to have a stability report.
Evidence supporting capsize included: apparent rapid loss of stability; lack of distress call; and nonrecovery of the fishermen. Other factors that might be considered in support of capsize were the vessel’s low freeboard and the eight tons of ice on board for preserving fish. All of these factors would have decreased stability.
The Coast Guard Marine Safety Center analysis performed on the vessel “focused mostly on the degradation of stability caused by water on deck. Based on its modeling, “only limited amounts of water were needed to negatively affect stability.”
A remotely operated vehicle (ROV), lowered to the scene of the Lady Luck in over 500' of water, photographed the starboard side of the vessel and spotted one closed and one open scupper.
Water from a quartering wave could have been trapped on deck if several scuppers had been closed. Although inconclusive, the report stated, “The Coast Guard believes the most likely cause of the casualty was capsizing due to water on desk or flooding with a subsequent rapid loss of vessel stability.”
Raft weak link
The ROV photographs showed something else that became a major concern during the investigation: The life raft was properly inflated but lying on the ocean floor 40' ahead of the vessel with the raft’s sea painter still attached to the Lady Luck.
Whether the fishermen had time to get into the raft is not known, but the raft was still tethered to the vessel when it sank. The weak link didn’t release the life raft from the vessel.
The weak link is a small wire fixture that attaches the raft’s sea painter to the vessel. After the raft pops out of its cradle, the link is designed to break when the pressure on it reaches 100-134 pounds, allowing the raft to float free of the vessel.
The ROV photographs fall short of showing why the weak link did not release. Possible reasons for the failure include: use of a nonstandard or not Coast-Guard-approved link; improper installation; the painter getting caught on rigging in such a way as to reduce the pressure on the link; or, as has happened before, the painter could have been cleated near the cradle. This cleat is only to be used when the crew wants to drop-launch the raft and keep it alongside the vessel while boarding.
Curiously, on the same day that the final report on the Lady Luck was released, Coast Guard Sector Juneau, AK released an alert titled “Improper Weak Links for Life Floats and Buoyant Apparatus.”
This report details a situation in Sitka, AK in which an improper weak link was installed on a life float. The link was not Coast Guard approved and the force required to break the link was 450 pounds – not the usual 100-134 pounds.
From these two accounts, we take home a number of lessons and urge fishermen to check their weak links before leaving port on their next fishing trip.
Back to story list
|
|
Tell us what you think.
