members of the deceased) could be awarded in a court case. The American Trial Lawyers Association was against the cap, which would limit their profits right along with awards for fishermen and their families. Both sides had lobbyists lined up to fight to the death.
The conflict created an opening for safety advocates like Peggy Barry, who helped to develop a safety bill that included an insurance cap (a sweetener to gain the support of boat owners). The trial lawyers shot that bill down. But Barry and her supporters didn’t give up. They developed another bill; this one focused exclusively on safety. The Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act passed on September 9, 1988.
Because of Peter Barry, every commercial fishing vessel in the United States today is required to carry safety equipment: life rafts, survival suits (for ships operating in cold water), signal flares, fire extinguishers, and a registered EPIRB. Emergency alarms and bilge pumps are mandatory on all ships, and crew are required by law to conduct regular safety drills. The results have been striking. Between 1990 and 2006, the annual fatality rate among commercial fishermen across the United States fell by 51 percent. Boats were still sinking—but men were surviving.
And yet the number of ships going down had barely changed at all. In the average year, 119 U.S. fishing boats are lost. That’s one boat gone every three days. Most years, those losses are responsible for significantly more than half of the total fishing deaths (falls overboard and equipment-related accidents account for most of the rest). It was a source of frustration for some in the Coast Guard—among them fishing vessel examiners Chris Woodley and Charlie Medlicott.
Both were longtime Coast Guard men. Woodley had spent most of his twenty-year career moving back and forth between Alaska and Washington State. The Coast Guard’s operating philosophy holds that diversity of geography and job experience is good, that moving constantly broadens a Coastie’s experience and makes that person more valuable at their next post. But Woodley had grown up in Alaska. He went to graduate school in Seattle and wrote his master’s thesis on impediments to safety improvements in the fishing industry. Even when he was based in Washington, Woodley spent a lot of time in Dutch Harbor, traveling north to help local inspectors like Charlie Medlicott at the start of the busiest fishing seasons. Most years, Woodley watched the Super Bowl with a bunch of fishermen at one of the town’s bars.
Woodley and Medlicott had seen so many boats go down. Sometimes the sinkings were mysteries. The ship seemed asgood as any other in the fleet; it had a competent captain, an experienced crew, a seemingly stable construction—and still it disappeared deep in the Bering. More often, boat losses fit a pattern. Especially with the crab boats. The damned things were so often overloaded by captains who didn’t read their own stability booklet (loading guidelines prepared by a marine architect) or maybe just didn’t care what it said. It was a recipe for disaster: a boat weighed down with crab, empty pots stacked high on deck—much higher than the architect had ever intended—and bad weather. The boat rolled, capsized, and sank.
By the late 1990s, Woodley and Medlicott had had enough.
Under U.S. Code, the Coast Guard has the authority to board any U.S.-flagged vessel, examine it, and—if the boat poses a threat to the environment, to commerce, or to human life—prevent that ship from leaving port. It was an authority that was hardly ever acted on in the Coast Guard. Mostly, the Coasties didn’t want to piss people off. The other services call them “Boy Scouts with Boats.” Most Army or Navy guys mean it as a jab, but many in the Coast Guard are Boy Scout types, and proud of it. These are men and women, after all, who at a young age decided they wanted nothing more than to become professional rescuers. They
The conflict created an opening for safety advocates like Peggy Barry, who helped to develop a safety bill that included an insurance cap (a sweetener to gain the support of boat owners). The trial lawyers shot that bill down. But Barry and her supporters didn’t give up. They developed another bill; this one focused exclusively on safety. The Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act passed on September 9, 1988.
Because of Peter Barry, every commercial fishing vessel in the United States today is required to carry safety equipment: life rafts, survival suits (for ships operating in cold water), signal flares, fire extinguishers, and a registered EPIRB. Emergency alarms and bilge pumps are mandatory on all ships, and crew are required by law to conduct regular safety drills. The results have been striking. Between 1990 and 2006, the annual fatality rate among commercial fishermen across the United States fell by 51 percent. Boats were still sinking—but men were surviving.
And yet the number of ships going down had barely changed at all. In the average year, 119 U.S. fishing boats are lost. That’s one boat gone every three days. Most years, those losses are responsible for significantly more than half of the total fishing deaths (falls overboard and equipment-related accidents account for most of the rest). It was a source of frustration for some in the Coast Guard—among them fishing vessel examiners Chris Woodley and Charlie Medlicott.
Both were longtime Coast Guard men. Woodley had spent most of his twenty-year career moving back and forth between Alaska and Washington State. The Coast Guard’s operating philosophy holds that diversity of geography and job experience is good, that moving constantly broadens a Coastie’s experience and makes that person more valuable at their next post. But Woodley had grown up in Alaska. He went to graduate school in Seattle and wrote his master’s thesis on impediments to safety improvements in the fishing industry. Even when he was based in Washington, Woodley spent a lot of time in Dutch Harbor, traveling north to help local inspectors like Charlie Medlicott at the start of the busiest fishing seasons. Most years, Woodley watched the Super Bowl with a bunch of fishermen at one of the town’s bars.
Woodley and Medlicott had seen so many boats go down. Sometimes the sinkings were mysteries. The ship seemed asgood as any other in the fleet; it had a competent captain, an experienced crew, a seemingly stable construction—and still it disappeared deep in the Bering. More often, boat losses fit a pattern. Especially with the crab boats. The damned things were so often overloaded by captains who didn’t read their own stability booklet (loading guidelines prepared by a marine architect) or maybe just didn’t care what it said. It was a recipe for disaster: a boat weighed down with crab, empty pots stacked high on deck—much higher than the architect had ever intended—and bad weather. The boat rolled, capsized, and sank.
By the late 1990s, Woodley and Medlicott had had enough.
Under U.S. Code, the Coast Guard has the authority to board any U.S.-flagged vessel, examine it, and—if the boat poses a threat to the environment, to commerce, or to human life—prevent that ship from leaving port. It was an authority that was hardly ever acted on in the Coast Guard. Mostly, the Coasties didn’t want to piss people off. The other services call them “Boy Scouts with Boats.” Most Army or Navy guys mean it as a jab, but many in the Coast Guard are Boy Scout types, and proud of it. These are men and women, after all, who at a young age decided they wanted nothing more than to become professional rescuers. They
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