Arne Thomlinson photo
• Smoked salmon was just one of the rewards for participants in a tour of the Bulkeley and Morice River systems last month sponsored by the fisheries technicians of the Gitksan Wefsuweten Tribal Council. The tour was designed to teach participants in a conference on Alcan more about the impacts of Kemano completion.
UFAWU seeks new ships to save fishermen's lives
Patrol boats used by the coast guard are not equipped to deal with severe storm conditions and new boats are necessary if lives are to be protected, says Capt. Peter Golden, head of Search and Rescue for the wet coast.
Golden told The Fisherman the patrol boat Ready was not able to save the lives of four fishermen who drowned Oct. 11 because it was not built to deal with storm conditions.
He said self-righting lifeboats are more suited for rescue work in storm conditions, but that none are available in most coastal areas.
The Ready was forced to head for shelter and abandon the search for the fishermen after a generator broke down and seas became dangerous for the patrol boat.
Golden said it would be difficult to say if a different type of boat, such as the self-righting 44-foot life boats in Bamfield or Torino or the American 52-foot version could have save the lives of the fishermen. However, he
did say the boats would have been able to respond in a better way.
"Whether on that day they would have had to seek shelter or not, I don't know," he said.
Meanwhile, a government employee who recently left the coast guard, has strong words for government mismanagement of the search and rescue department.
"From the inside you can see the amount of political maneuvers, the hush-ups and the keeping of information from the public," he said. "A consequence of the suppression is the loss of human lives."
The federal government has built patrol boats that are useless, to undertake rescue operations in major storms, he said, and they should be augmented with a series of motor lifeboat stations along the coast. On the west coast, he said botas should be stationed at Kyuquot Inlet and Winter Harbor. Boats of this type are already stationed at Tofino, Bamfield and Bull Harbor.
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To back up his contention that the government has not allocated funds for the construction of boats suitable to west coast conditions, the source charged that the Point Race and the Point Henry, located in Campbell River and Prince Rupert, are not the type needed. He said the decision to build them was made in Ottawa where officials have since reversed a decision to send three more similar ships to the west coast.
Golden confirmed the allegations that the boats are not the best for the job, agreeing that plans to station three more of them at Masset, Sandspit and Bella Bella have been shelved.
"I believe that senior management has accepted they aren't what we need," he said. "I don't know whose decision it was to (send the boats) out here."
He also said the R class patrol boats have to be replaced but wouldn't comment on what was being considered.
The UFAWU has called for the construction of two large ships with helicopter platforms on them to assist in the rescue of people shipwrecked in storms.
The UFAWU is also calling on the federal government to have five helicopters between Victoria and Prince Rupert on a 24 hour per day basis.
During the attempt to rescue Charles Casey near Albert Head, a request by Canadian authorities for the U.S. to supply a helicopter failed when the U.S. one unavailable.
Instead, the Coast Guard provided a helicopter that had no capability to rescue the fisherman had he been spotted.
Golden said a decision must be made by the federal government on what ships should be constructed to replace the patrol vessels. Consideration is being given to ships which would be able to launch life raft type boats which could rescue those stranded and then be brought back on board the mother ship.
Removal of Station Papa was 'error'
Marine weather forecasting on the B.C. coast has suffered since the removal of two weather ships in 1981 and steps to replace valuable atmospheric testing data provided by the ships are still in their infancy.
Weather Station Papa was axed by the federal government in 1981 as an economy measure, despite strong protests from marine groups. The two ships were sold for $700,000 a fraction of what they cost to build.
Attempts to replace data gathered by the weather ships have been slow and during the most recent storm, which claimed five lives, the M.V. Friendship, a commercial carrier which is being equipped to gather some atmospheric data, was tied up in Portland.
Regular gathering of surface data on weather conditions also is hampered by the lack of radio operators on board commercial ships during night hours.
Gary Wells, chief of the Pacific Weather Centre in Vancouver, told The Fisherman Oct. 18 that surface reports in the early morning can be a problem because no operators are available to send them.
He also revealed the U.S. satellite relied on by Canadian forecasters for data has been moved away from the west coast to the central U.S. because the east coast satellite broke down.
As a result of the shift in the satellite, Wells said the department, "certainly did lose some
resolution as we look out west over the Pacific Ocean."
Wells said the removal of the ships was an economic decision and replacement data in several areas has remained steady from buoys and satellite reports. He would not say if the ships would have given more warning of the storm.
However, John Knox, a former director of the Atmospheric Environment Service on the west coast, says the removal of the weather ships was an error which effected the gathering of data.
Interviewed from his Toronto office, where he is completing a two-year research project for the AES, Knox said information from the grounds is important to accurate weather forecasting. Although hesitant to commend on the specifics of the recent storm, Knox said a weakness does exist without adequate surface information.
"It's sort of like asking whether it would be better seeing the traffic directly as you get ready to cross the street or is it better getting the information through your headphones from a helicopter flying above the road?" he said.
He charged the information available from the surface and atmospheric tests cannot be replaced by a satallite.
Economics and not the saving of lives appears to be at the root of government decisions to cut the weather ships out of service, a move which Jack Mathieson, See WEATHER—page 13
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THE FISHERMAN — OCTOBER 19, 1984/3