wanted stability and structure, the honor of the military, but maybe didn’t want to go to war. They wanted to be the good guys. Why would they go out of their way to board boats against the owners’ will when it wasn’t really part of their job? When the law on the issue was anything but clear?
How about to save some lives? Woodley thought.
In October 1999 he and Charlie Medlicott started their own experiment, boarding every Bering Sea crab boat before it left port. A shocking number were overloaded. And it was tough for captains to argue when the inspectors pointed out a discrepancybetween the number of pots on deck and the number authorized by the ship’s own stability booklet. The captains pulled pots off, left them stacked at the dock, and returned to port with their boats intact.
It didn’t take long to see a difference. By January 2005, there hadn’t been a Bering Sea crab boat lost in five years. Charlie Medlicott was the law, but he’d been around long enough to be respected, even liked, by a lot of local fishermen. He was in his mid-forties, with ruddy cheeks, wild eyes, and a bow-legged stride. Charlie knew the fleet, knew the boats’ histories and challenges. He wasn’t above talking out a problem over a beer in the bar.
Charlie was different from many of the Coasties Dutch Harbor fishermen encountered, often young officers who’d never been in Alaska before they got stuck with this assignment, and who’d never be back after their year-long hardship post was up (like St. Paul, the assignment to Dutch was one the Coasties reported to without their families, for only a year at a time). Charlie, on the other hand, loved Dutch Harbor. He was fascinated by the place from the first time he landed there—the weather, the characters, all the big boats. He was a boat guy, after all. He’d served for years in the Coast Guard, worked at the small boat station in Juneau, and on the Liberty, a 110-foot patrol boat. He got out after that. He fished for a couple of years and then worked for a company selling marine supplies and safety equipment, packing life rafts. In 1993 he got back in the Coast Guard as a civilian employee. Since then, he’d been bouncing back and forth between Anchorage and Dutch Harbor. He knew a lot of people there; he was part of the community.
Charlie wasn’t coy when he ran into Gary Edwards at the hotel bar at the Grand Aleutian one evening in January 2005.“I’ll be down tomorrow morning to check your boat,” he told the captain of the crabber Big Valley, which was scheduled to leave Dutch Harbor to fish for opilio up near St. Paul Island. Gary was well-known around Dutch. He was probably the only guy in rural Alaska who regularly dressed in a tweed jacket and a beret and kept a Buddha shrine on his boat, complete with burning incense. In two previous instances, both men knew, the Big Valley had been overloaded when the Coasties came down to the dock, and Gary was forced to remove pots before leaving port.
“Sure. See you then,” Gary said to Charlie in the hotel.
But the next morning when Charlie got down to the pier, the Big Valley was gone. Not long after, he heard the news: The ship had sunk. Gary was dead, along with four of his five deckhands.
The lone survivor was a crewman who had been asleep in his bunk when the Big Valley rolled over on its side—and failed to roll back up. The man had his survival suit with him in his cabin and put it on before he went up on deck. He got into the water and found his way to the boat’s life raft. A few hours later, a Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk predeployed to St. Paul plucked him out of the ocean. Two bodies were recovered soon after: One fisherman had failed to get the hood of his survival suit over his head; the second never got his suit zipped up all the way. The other three men, including Gary, were never found. The survivor was the only one of the men on board who had taken a safety course.
It didn’t take long to count the
How about to save some lives? Woodley thought.
In October 1999 he and Charlie Medlicott started their own experiment, boarding every Bering Sea crab boat before it left port. A shocking number were overloaded. And it was tough for captains to argue when the inspectors pointed out a discrepancybetween the number of pots on deck and the number authorized by the ship’s own stability booklet. The captains pulled pots off, left them stacked at the dock, and returned to port with their boats intact.
It didn’t take long to see a difference. By January 2005, there hadn’t been a Bering Sea crab boat lost in five years. Charlie Medlicott was the law, but he’d been around long enough to be respected, even liked, by a lot of local fishermen. He was in his mid-forties, with ruddy cheeks, wild eyes, and a bow-legged stride. Charlie knew the fleet, knew the boats’ histories and challenges. He wasn’t above talking out a problem over a beer in the bar.
Charlie was different from many of the Coasties Dutch Harbor fishermen encountered, often young officers who’d never been in Alaska before they got stuck with this assignment, and who’d never be back after their year-long hardship post was up (like St. Paul, the assignment to Dutch was one the Coasties reported to without their families, for only a year at a time). Charlie, on the other hand, loved Dutch Harbor. He was fascinated by the place from the first time he landed there—the weather, the characters, all the big boats. He was a boat guy, after all. He’d served for years in the Coast Guard, worked at the small boat station in Juneau, and on the Liberty, a 110-foot patrol boat. He got out after that. He fished for a couple of years and then worked for a company selling marine supplies and safety equipment, packing life rafts. In 1993 he got back in the Coast Guard as a civilian employee. Since then, he’d been bouncing back and forth between Anchorage and Dutch Harbor. He knew a lot of people there; he was part of the community.
Charlie wasn’t coy when he ran into Gary Edwards at the hotel bar at the Grand Aleutian one evening in January 2005.“I’ll be down tomorrow morning to check your boat,” he told the captain of the crabber Big Valley, which was scheduled to leave Dutch Harbor to fish for opilio up near St. Paul Island. Gary was well-known around Dutch. He was probably the only guy in rural Alaska who regularly dressed in a tweed jacket and a beret and kept a Buddha shrine on his boat, complete with burning incense. In two previous instances, both men knew, the Big Valley had been overloaded when the Coasties came down to the dock, and Gary was forced to remove pots before leaving port.
“Sure. See you then,” Gary said to Charlie in the hotel.
But the next morning when Charlie got down to the pier, the Big Valley was gone. Not long after, he heard the news: The ship had sunk. Gary was dead, along with four of his five deckhands.
The lone survivor was a crewman who had been asleep in his bunk when the Big Valley rolled over on its side—and failed to roll back up. The man had his survival suit with him in his cabin and put it on before he went up on deck. He got into the water and found his way to the boat’s life raft. A few hours later, a Coast Guard HH-60 Jayhawk predeployed to St. Paul plucked him out of the ocean. Two bodies were recovered soon after: One fisherman had failed to get the hood of his survival suit over his head; the second never got his suit zipped up all the way. The other three men, including Gary, were never found. The survivor was the only one of the men on board who had taken a safety course.
It didn’t take long to count the
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