THE FISHERMAN, OCTOBER 19, 1998
Inquest short on recommendations
Probe into Charmer sinking finishes up
T
he UFAWU-CAW played a key role in the Coroner's inquest into the Dec. 2,1997 sinking of the Pacific Charmer where two crew members died and three others were rescued from the waters of Pylades Channel. During the week-long inquest, 22 witnesses were called, including the survivors, representatives of Coast Guard, the Department of Transport and the Transportation Safety Board, as well as fishermen with knowledge of the Pacific Charmer. Throughout the proceeding, I was able to ask questions as the union's safety director.
The main areas of concern were: what happened? Why did the Pacific Charmer sink? How could the rescue time be improved and how can we prevent similar tragedies from happening again?
T
HE RESCUE
The Pacific Charmer sank very quickly. No Mayday was sent, the life raft was launched but got caught in the rigging as she went over and couldn't be used. The survivors were in the water over 1 and 1/2 hours.
The only distress signal that went off on the night of the sinking was the 406 EPIRB which gives off radio signals on two frequencies when activated. The 406 MHz signal goes to the stationary satellite and that information goes to the command centre in Trenton, Ontario where the vessel name and owner contact number are kept. This information is faxed to the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria. The orbiting positioning satellites narrow the location of the EPIRB on successive passes from their polar orbits.
The Pacific Charmer's EPIRB went off at 1:31 a.m. Dec. 2. By 1:45 a.m. the company, J.S. McMillan, had been contacted by RCC Victoria and the fact that the boat was fishing in Georgia Strait was known. The Coast (iuard couldn't raise the Charmer on Channel 16 and RCC Victoria hadn't been able to get the Charmer on the BC Tel channel.
At 1:56 a.m. RCC Victoria
called the Sea Island-based hovercraft in Richmond to try to pick up the 121.5 MHz locator signal from the EPIRB on their tracking equipment. They weren't able to pick it up. At 1:59 a.m., RCC Victoria again spoke to the J.S. McMillan representative who informed them that the Pacific Charmer was fishing near Gabriola Island. The hovercraft from Richmond and the Coast Guard boat from Ganges were sent to the area. By this time the second positioning satellite had gone over and the location was known within five miles.
At 2:11 a.m. an aircraft picked up the signal from the EPIRB, giving a much closer location of where the EPIRB was. At 2:29 a.m., RCC Victoria called the U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to see if they would respond. They have a 30-minute response time wftile Comox has a two-hour response time after 4 p.m.
At 2:58 a.m. the hovercraft arrived on the scene, spotting the partially submerged life raft and called for more help. First the Ladysmith Coast Guard auxiliary was called but its boat was not operational. Then the Nanaimo and Cowichan auxiliaries were called, along with other boats in the area.
At 3:04 a.m. crew member Ed Jackson was rescued, followed quickly by Lloyd Webb, the DFO observer, and Max Skinner who had made it to shore. At 3:40 a.m. the U.S. helicopter spotted Leo Barros in the water. The hovercraft picked him up unconscious and he was given CPR enroute to the hospital but did not survive. Nearly four hours later, at 7:00 a.m., Leo Tarrant's body was found.
The UFAWU felt that the Coast Guard did a good job of reacting to the EPIRB-only distress with its primary resources (hovercraft, Ganges boat and US helicopter). This action led to the rescue of the three survivors. But help could have reached the scene perhaps an hour earlier if all boats in the area and the local auxiliaries had been called in as soon as the general location was known. That was established by 2:11 a.m. when the airplane picked up the EPIRB signal. A cross channel radio alert requesting help locating the boat and the dispatching of the local auxiliaries might have saved additional lives.
SAFETY
Jim Blair
The auxiliaries have radios and other electronics as well as life-saving equipment on their boats. Once he was called at 3:18 a.m., Cowichan auxiliary member Julian Matsen was on site within 17 minutes.
R
ADIO
CALLS
The fishing boats in the area that night were the Pacific Charmer, the Arctic Ocean and the Viclsle who were all fishing in Pylades Channel. Earlier in the evening, the Arctic Ocean had torn up its net and headed back to town. When the company was called by RCC Victoria at 1:45, the company then called the Arctic Ocean which was by then almost in the Fraser River, and asked for an update.
Arctic Ocean skipper Ron Gorman testified that he tried unsuccessfully to call the Pacific Charmer. He then called the Viclsle on the company channel, informed the skipper that the Pacific Charmer's EPIRB had done off and asked him to call the Charmer on Channel 78A as they were not responding to calls from the Arctic Ocean. Gorman reported that the skipper replied: "If I can hear you, they can hear you." Neither the Viclsle nor the Arctic Ocean called the Coast Guard at that time for more information.
That part of the tragedy was amplified with the later testimony by the survivors that the Vic Isle passed them when they were in the water but apparently couldn't hear the sound from Lloyd Webb's distress whistle.
HAPPENED?
Lance Bedlington , the naval architect with the Transportation Safety Board provided the answers as to why the Pacific Charmer sank. The answer was a combination of events. The technical answer is that a number of factors contributed to changing the distance between the centre of gravity and the centre of buoyancy on the Pacific Charmer. This combined with a list to starboard, considerable free surface liquids and a small amount of freeboard were the cause of the accident.
The Pacific Charmer was stability tested when it was first launched for herring packing only. The test was done without nets or trawl doors on the vessel.
Then, some time around 1991, weight was added to the keel. In addition, the trawl doors weigh 1,800 pounds each, and the three trawl nets that were on the drums each weighed approximately 2 and 1/2 tons. These were centred at 4 and 1/2 feet above the deck for the port and starboard nets and eight feet above the deck for the centre drum. There were approximately five tons of herring in the net in the water and that weight was transferred via the winch holding it to the mast 18 feet above the deck. There was also considerable spare equipment on the wheel house roof, weighing about 500 pounds.
The free surface effect — the ability of liquids to move around in their containers — also played a role since both the rear fuel tanks and the fish holds were only partially full.
Bedlington stated it was likely that because of the additional weight, the Pacific Charmer had only seven or eight inches of freeboard and that a heeling to starboard of only nine degrees was required to put the starboard deck under water. When the ship was raised from the bottom of Pylades Channel, the rudder was found to be 20 degrees to port, an angle that would have contributed to putting the starboard stern under water. Water would have gone across the deck into the open manhole of the starboard stern tank. All of it would have gone to the starboard side of the tank, making the problem worse.
In addition, the galley door, both engine room doors and the lazeret door were lashed open. As the Pacific Charmer continued to heel over, the water downflooded
the engine room and lazeret and she sank on her side. The crew that survived said the vessel took less than a minute for the deck to go to 45 degrees. In four or five minutes she had sunk.
The jurors at the inquest made only two recommendations:
1) that vessels be required to report vessel modifications to the steamship inspections that are done every 4 years;
2) that EPIRBs with GPS (Global Positioning Systems) be phased in for fishboats.
These were worthwhile recommendations, particularly the GPS -equipped EPIRBs, which give a coordinate fix off the satellite. A similar proposal has already been made by Transport Canada although current models are expensive.
The inquest also raised a number of other issues of concern that were not addressed by the jury. The use and call-out of the Coast Guard auxiliaries, is one, given the increasing cutbacks to the Coast Guard. The events surrounding the Charmer sinking certainly suggest that the auxiliaries should be incorporated into call-out protocols earlier.
The jurisdiction overlaps the bureaucracies of the WCB, Coast Guard, DFO and Transport Canada safety branch and the exchange of information between these organizations on specific
The jury recommended that EPIRBs with Global Positioning System be phased in for all fishboats.
safety issues for fishing vessels still needs work. It's noteworthy that DFO now requires boats participating in the food and bait herring fishery to provide stability documentation for fishing and packing herring as a condition of participation in the lottery draw system.
A number of safety issues on fishing vessels were also raised. The practice of lashing open water tight doors when working is dangerous. The placement of safety equipment on boats was raised a number of times. The* Pacific Charmer had more than required lifesaving equipment on board. The placing of immersion suits where they are accessible on the outside decks and the position of the life rafts where they can be launched away from rigging and from a vessel on its side needs to be considered when equipping a vessel.
One thing is for sure: the WCB requirement of training crew on emergency procedures is likely to be pursued more vigorously because of this accident.