Arctic Rose retrofitting is key to investigation
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Four months later, he limped home, the boat's main engine a wreck and its take half what he hoped for.
This fishing season was shaping up to be a similar disaster for the Arctic Rose and its owner, Arctic Sole Seafoods of Seattle, when the boat sank April 2, killing all 15 men aboard.
It was the worst U.S. fishing accident in a half century and the most mysterious in decades. The boat disappeared in relatively calm seas without sending up a Mayday.
Testimony last week at a joint inquiry of the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board in Seattle has revealed two things: a boat few thought was up to fishing in Alaskan waters and a boat owner determined to do just that.
Kelley, asked for his "wish list" for the vessel, wished for a different boat. "I'd ... make her 20 feet longer and 10 feet wider."
As it was, Kelley said, the Arctic Rose was just "a little boat in a big-boat fishery."
It couldn't make enough money to attract a loyal, veteran crew. Captains, mates, engineers, deckhands and processors came and went.
Arctic Sole and its president, Dave Olney, had invested significant time and cash in the Arctic Rose after buying it two years ago. The 92-foot boat was built in 1988 as a Gulf Coast shrimper.
The boat underwent substantial engineering and alterations intended to improve its stability while allowing it to haul larger catches. That retrofitting has become a focal point of the investigation into the sinking.
The inquiry panel, aided by a naval architect from the Coast Guard's Marine Safety Center in Washington, D.C., spent several hours last week examining the complex stability calculations performed at Jensen Maritime Consultants in Seattle in spring and summer 1999.
The consultants prepared guidelines to operate and load the Arctic Rose so it would remain upright and buoyant in most sea conditions.
But the manual also cited several restrictions which hampered the boat's profitability.
The stability calculations were done by Eric Blumhagen, an engineer in training at Jensen, and reviewed by one of the firm's senior naval architects.
Blumhagen told the panel the Arctic Rose operated with "more restrictions than average."
He said the boat owner is responsible for ensuring that stability recommendations are followed.
Olney wanted the Arctic Rose altered to handle a maximum deck load of 40,000 pounds when hauling in a net load of fish.
But even after considerable work, including welding more than seven tons of lead to the keel as ballast, the boat at times could handle catches of only 5,000 pounds and still comply with stability requirements.
Lt. George Borlase, a Coast Guard stability expert, said the boat had to have weight low in its hold to balance weight brought on deck. Catches could become progressively larger as fish filled the freezer hold.
But even under optimum circumstances, the maximum load on deck could not exceed 21,000 pounds - little more than half Olney's goal.
"When you told Mr. Olney that he would not be able to carry the deck load that he wanted, and in some cases his haul-back would be an eighth of what he wanted, what did he say?" asked Robert Ford, a safety-board marine-accident investigator and panel member.
"I don't remember," Blumhagen said.
Olney is expected to testify this week.
Tom LaPointe, who served aboard the Arctic Rose for three months in winter 2000, said he wasn't aware of the stability requirements.
The requirements were issued five months before LaPointe sailed on the Arctic Rose and were required to be available to the crew.
Under questioning by Arctic Sole's lawyer, Douglas Fryer, LaPointe said he may have seen a Jensen Maritime folder in the wheelhouse. But he said he didn't think that it was an updated manual and that he never saw the restrictive loading tables.
The altered Arctic Rose faced another unusual requirement: The No. 1 fuel tank in the bow of the vessel, which contained at least 30 percent of the ship's fuel, could not be tapped. The boat needed the weight of that fuel for ballast at all times. The remaining fuel, in four tanks along the sides of the hull, had to be burned in a specific sequence to keep the boat stable.
Also, the small fish-processing factory on the rear of the main deck had to be "weather- or water-tight" at all times. Excessive water sloshing around could compromise the boat's stability.
"In my opinion, it was impossible," LaPointe said.
A large hatch between the deck bin and factory leaked, he said, and a water-tight door onto the rear deck was difficult to close.
Throughout the week, people familiar with the Arctic Rose and with fishing conditions in Alaska were asked to speculate what might have made the boat sink. Only one body was recovered: Capt. Dave Rundall of Hawaii was wearing his survival suit, which was filled with water, when he was pulled from the sea by John Nelson, the mate on a nearby sister ship, the Alaskan Rose.
Nelson declined to speculate on the sinking, except to say it must have been sudden.
Marine surveyor Carl Anderson said the boat must have "turtled," or tipped over so rapidly nobody could get out. But he couldn't say how that might have happened.
But LaPointe, a 12-year veteran of the Bering Sea who now is mate aboard a 190-foot factory trawler, suggested a chilling chain-reaction scenario.
"No single event would have put that boat down so quick," he said.
The Arctic Rose was heavy in the stern, LaPointe said. An undetected leak into an area known as the lazarette, where the steering machinery is housed, could quickly sink the boat's stern enough to allow water to flood into the rear-deck factory and from there into the freezer hold.
"Once that happened, it would be all done," he said.
More than likely, at 3:30 a.m. - the time the Arctic Rose sank - the 13 crew hands would have been asleep in cramped quarters just forward of the factory. If the factory flooded, there would only be a single escape route - up a stairway, through the wheelhouse to where the survival gear was stored.
"If you find yourself thrown out of your rack with six other guys, it would be confusing," LaPointe said.
The captain and the mate, in a stateroom behind the wheelhouse, would have a better chance of escape, he said.
"But if the vessel was totally capsized, there would be no access," he said. "None."
Mike Carter can be reached at 206-464-3706, or at mcarter@seattletimes.com.