Ferry repeatedly sounded alarm

A Port Angeles man who was killed yesterday when a superjumbo ferry collided with his motor yacht apparently was trying to outrun the vessel, Canadian police investigators said.

Bernard Larson, 72, died and his ex-wife, Lois Larson of Anchorage, was critically hurt in the collision off Vancouver Island. Bernard Larson survived the crash and was clinging to the wreckage of his 34-foot Tollycraft, the Star Ruby, but died later of a heart attack, Canadian officials said.

Lois Larson was underwater for several minutes before she was rescued by an off-duty Victoria constable. She was in critical condition last night at Victoria General Hospital in Victoria, B.C., a hospital spokeswoman said.

The Star Ruby was trying to overtake and cut past the Spirit of Vancouver Island superjumbo ferry around 11:15 a.m. when the collision occurred, according to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sgt. Don Brown.

The ferry captain had repeatedly sounded a whistle to warn the boat, said BC Ferries spokesman Steve Nussbaum. A friend of Larson's said he wore a hearing aid attached to his glasses and couldn't hear when he removed them.

None of the 1,076 people aboard the ferry was hurt, and it returned to service later in the day, Nussbaum said.

Police, BC Ferries and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are investigating.

Bernard Larson was pulled from the water by Derek Morrison, an off-duty Victoria constable who saw the accident from his home on Piers Island. Larson was barely able to speak but said there was one other person on the boat. Morrison then went back with ambulance attendants for Lois Larson.

The accident occurred shortly after the ferry left Sidney, near Victoria, bound for Tsawwassen on the mainland, near the U.S.-Canada border.

The ferry was passing through a scenic archipelago that is one of the world's premier boating regions. Pleasure boats abound in the area, especially on a clear day in late summer, such as yesterday.

Witnesses said they thought more than two people were on board, prompting rescue divers to search the area. But police later determined that the Larsons were the only passengers.

Witness Ivy Keais, who lives near the ferry dock, told The Associated Press she heard the ferry sound its horn repeatedly before the collision.

"It was tooting and tooting, and I thought, `Why doesn't that boat move out of the way?' " she said. "I was so terrified because I thought (the ferry) was going to hit (the boat).

"I witnessed the whole thing, and I do know the ferry did its darndest. It just laid on the hooter."

The smaller boat seemed not to change course and disappeared under the ferry's bow, coming up in the vessel's wake.

Pleasure boaters are often surprised by the speed of the large ferries, said Canadian Coast Guard officials and boaters familiar with the area.

"Sometimes there's a syndrome where if something's big it doesn't look like it's going that fast," said Maj. Pat McSorley of the Canadian Air Force-Coast Guard marine rescue team in Victoria. "A lot of times vessels cut it close, thinking it's not going so fast because it's so big."

Seattle boater Dennis Donner, who frequents the area in a motor yacht, agreed.

"Even under clear conditions you have to be really aware," he said. "They're pretty fast boats; they can really catch you by surprise."

Dave Brownell, a Victoria-based charter captain and former Coast Guard member, said boaters who try to outrun the ferries are tempting fate.

"You give them plenty of distance," he said. "It's like if you're on a moped, you don't go out and play among a bunch of semis."

At 549 feet long, the Spirit of Vancouver Island and its sister ferry are the largest in the BC Ferries fleet and are 80 feet longer than the largest Washington state ferry, the Tacoma.

The Canadian ferry runs at 19.5 knots (about 22.5 mph), but it's unclear whether it had reached that speed at the time of the collision.

Witnesses told police the smaller boat seemed to be going "full clip," but Sgt. Brown had no more definite estimate of its speed.

Nussbaum said the captain repeatedly blew the ferry's whistle to warn the smaller boat. He did not know if there was radio communication between them.

"I think they gave him five short blasts, which usually means get out of the way," Nussbaum said.

After the collision the ferry dispatched a rescue crew. Then it pulled about a kilometer away and stayed there until 2 p.m. before returning to its berth.

The collision occurred in an area that is not visible to Canadian Coast Guard radar, said Ian Wade, a Coast Guard watch supervisor based in Victoria. The radar picks up the ferry regularly when it leaves Sidney Harbor, but it quickly disappears into a radar shadow caused by an island.

Even if the incident had been on radar, it might not have been picked up or prevented, Wade said. Pleasure boats smaller than 90 feet long aren't required to participate in the Coast Guard vessel traffic-advisory system, and smaller ones often don't show up on radar.

In 1985, a Vancouver woman and two of her sons were killed in Horseshoe Bay off West Vancouver when a B.C. ferry hit the family's 40-foot boat.

Larson was heading for a Tollycraft rendezvous at Thetis Island 40 miles north, police learned by interviewing people at marinas he had visited before the trip.

A retired auto-body repairman from Anchorage, Larson moved to the Port Angeles Boat Haven marina eight years ago and lived aboard the Star Ruby, harbormaster Chuck Faires said.

Faires described Larson as a nice person and a good tenant who kept an eye on the marina and "kept us well-informed of what was going on."

Larson also kept his 1973 Tollycraft in tiptop shape and updated it with modern equipment.

"I know he was meticulous on the boat," Faires said. "It was spotless."

The mood was somber last night at Boat Haven, a large marina in Port Angeles harbor, home to about 30 live-aboards. Even people who just stored boats at the marina knew Larson. He was known as a skilled skipper who liked to complain but had a soft heart.

"He was an excellent person," said Steve Hoveskeland, 50, who keeps a boat near Larson's slip. "He came on as a grouch, but he wasn't a grouch."

Friends questioned how an experienced seaman could have landed in such a situation.

"I could see myself getting into a situation where a ferry would run over me," said Michael Gordon, 59, whose 34-foot pleasure boat sits a few slips from Larson's. "But not Bernie. He spent most of his life on the water. It just doesn't make sense."

Seattle Times staff reporters Eric Nalder and Christine Clarridge contributed to this story.

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Other ferry accidents

Several fatal incidents involving ferries or ferry docks in Washington or British Columbia have occurred in the past 15 years:

November 1999: Rosemary McGuinn, 64, of Herron Island in Pierce County, drowned after her car rolled off a private ferry, the Charlie Wells, traveling from Herron Island to the Key Peninsula. A ferry worker removed the wheel chock, a triangular block placed against a car's tire, just before the accident. McGuinn's car was in neutral at the time, Pierce County sheriff's officials said.

May 1997: A 21-year-old man committed suicide when he drove his van off the Edmonds ferry dock into Puget Sound.

July 1992: Sharonann Grant, 47, of Everett died after driving a car off the Mukilteo ferry dock. No ferry was at the dock at the time.

August 1985: Kim Kwok, 46, of Vancouver, B.C., and two of her sons - Martin, 12, and Michael, 2 1/2 - died after a British Columbia ferry collided with the Kwoks' 40-foot boat. Kwok's husband, George, and their son Nelson, 10, survived.