The Star-Ledger spent months investigating the sinking of a Cape May-based scallop boat that left six dead and spared just one crew member. This five-chapter series was printed in a 20-page special Sunday Star-Ledger section and will be presented over four days on NJ.com. Read more about how this story was researched.
Story by Amy Ellis Nutt
• Nov. 23: Chapter 3 -- Worst fears are realized, six men lost at sea
• Nov. 23: Chapter 4 -- A behemoth enters the fishing grounds
• Nov. 24: Chapter 5 -- A case of high seas hit-and-run?
In the chilly, early morning hours of March 24, 2009, six of seven crewman were killed when the red-hulled scalloper, the Lady Mary, sank to the bottom of the Atlantic. The mystery of what sank her, which continues to haunt the maritime world, has just begun.
This story is about a tragedy no one lived to tell — except Jose Arias, the only crewman plucked from the ocean alive, but who was asleep below decks when the sea suddenly began to swallow the boat. But from the tormented memories of its sole survivor, hundreds of pages of Coast Guard documents, the analyses of more than a dozen marine experts and the Lady Mary’s own ghostly remains, a picture has slowly emerged.
No single event doomed the six fishermen, rather a cascade of circumstances set in motion years earlier by a slip in penmanship on a vessel safety form, compounded by a clerical error. Darkness, deteriorating weather, a tired crew and an open hatch contributed to the vessel’s vulnerability. Then, a floating behemoth 10 times the size of the little scalloper came plowing through the fishing ground at nearly full throttle.
Why does a sinking ship make such a great story? I guess its the rubber neck effect. We like to look at tragedy. Hope some learn from it. Check your E-Pirb, make sure the number is correct.
Official 406 MHz EPIRB Registration Form (PDF File)
H If you have any questions about this form or with EPIRB registration in general, please call 1-888-212-SAVE (7283) or 301-817-4515. For information on the U.S. Search & Rescue Satellite... www.acrelectronics.com/common/noaareg.pdf
At 5:40 a.m. on March 24, 2009, a geostationary satellite 22,236 miles above sea level wakes up. Its antennae have picked up a maritime distress signal from an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon.
About the size of a large flashlight, an EPIRB is a required piece of equipment on most commercial fishing vessels. When submerged — that is, when a ship begins to sink — the device automatically releases from a bracket attached to the outside of a ship’s cabin or wheelhouse and floats to the surface.
The EPIRB emits a distress signal, in bursts, every 52 seconds on a special radio frequency (406 megahertz), reserved for emergencies. Embedded in the signal transmitted in the early morning hours of March 24 was a unique 15-digit code identifying the Lady Mary and its owners.
The geostationary satellite is the first link in an electronic rescue chain, and it immediately notifies the nearest automated "local user terminal," which is an unmanned computer at U.S. Mission Control Center in Suitland, Md. The center is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and its Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking program, or SARSAT, is in the same building on the Suitland campus. Atop the flat roof of the office, radio dishes sprout like mutant mushrooms, scanning the skies 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Chat live Tuesday with 'The Wreck of the Lady Mary' authors
The Star-Ledger will host a live chat on Tuesday at noon with the authors of "The Wreck of the Lady Mary" series, Amy Ellis Nutt and Andre Malok, to give readers the chance to ask questions and discuss the project.
Edith Jones, longtime partner of Bernie Smith, lies on the couch in her apartment in Wildwood. It is 11 a.m., and Jones is expecting Bernie back the next day. On ABC, Channel 6 in Philadelphia, Rachael Ray has just finished interviewing the latest winner of TV’s "The Biggest Loser" reality show. Jones is waiting for "The View" to start when Action News breaks in with a special report.
The Lady Mary, a fishing boat out of Cape May, appears to have sunk, the announcer says. One man is reported to be alive, two others are either dead or in very critical condition, and four are still missing.
Jones leaps off the couch and calls her daughter Rebecca.
"Bernie’s boat went down!" she screams into the phone.
Just before dawn March 24, 2009, on black, moonless seas, the container ship Cap Beatrice was steaming toward the Delaware breakwater where the bay and the ocean meet. Here, deep-draft vessels like the Cap Beatrice pause and take on a river pilot, who then guides the ship up the Delaware into the Port of Philadelphia. Occasionally a ship will wait at the breakwater if a berth in port is not immediately available, but containers, which often carry food and other perishables, normally do not.
From her position 66 miles off the coast at 5 a.m., the approximate time the Lady Mary sank, the Cap Beatrice needed only about three hours to reach the breakwater. It took her 17, according to the records of the area’s river pilots association, as well as the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, which monitors the area’s river and bay traffic.
"Generally, ships wait one or one and a half hours at the breakwater," said Capt. Dick Buckaloo, acting president of the Pilots Association for the Bay and River Delaware. "For containers, downtime is lost money for them. So it’s odd when a container waits."
What the Cap Beatrice was doing remains unclear, even to the Coast Guard, which received no signal for six hours from the ship’s Automatic Identification System, a tracking device that records speed, position and direction. Her last transmission was recorded by the Coast Guard at 35 seconds past the hour, 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
This could be a book. Once again, I got to say, the Coast Guard needs a new Commander, with a little more attention to his job. Why that boat ever left Philadelphia is ...........well, just wrong. To many pencil pushers, not enough men. Sad story.
A Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation into the sinking of the Lady Mary convened in April 2009. Several weeks of hearings were held over the next eight months, with testimony from José Arias, the only survivor of a seven-man crew; Fuzzy Smith, the co-owner of the boat; and at least a dozen other witnesses, including Lake Downham, the Coast Guard rescue swimmer who pulled Arias from the water.
0Share
0 Comments
More than a year and a half after the accident, the marine board has yet to release its report, although Cmdr. Kyle McAvoy, the chairman of the three-member investigative panel, says it is largely written.
"We’ve worked very hard to address all the possibilities," he said. "It comes down to a few things: a weather event, some sort of event on the surface with another vessel, or a mechanical problem during the night that led to a slowly evolving problem."
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
