Sitka Boat Capsizes; 5 Crewmen Missing

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Category: News

Created on Monday, 02 December 2024 15:43

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By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff
    The Coast Guard called off the search today for the five aboard the Sitka-based fishing boat Wind Walker, missing since a mayday call early Sunday morning saying the boat was overturning about 25 miles southwest of Juneau.
    The decision came after Coast Guard helicopters and boats of all kinds, including Coast Guard Cutters and an Alaska Marine Highway ferry, searched some 108 nautical miles for more than 24 hours.

The F/V Wind Walker is pictured in 2022 during the Sitka Sound sac roe fishery. (Sentinel File Photo by James Poulson)

The star shows the area where the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a search for the Sitka-based 52-foot seiner-longliner Wind Walker. (Google Maps image)

    The only signs found of the missing five were seven cold-water immersion suits and two strobe lights recovered in the search area just south of Port Couverden, the Coast Guard said.
    The last report from the 52-foot seiner-longliner Wind Walker was a VHF Channel 16 mayday call at 12:10 a.m. Sunday. Later, Coast Guard watchstanders received a signal from an emergency position indicating radio beacon registered to the Wind Walker.
    The Coast Guard responded to the Sunday mayday with a search helicopter from Air Station Sitka and a 45-foot response vessel from Juneau. The Alaska Marine Highway M/V Hubbard was the first vessel to reach the search area, and other boats joined in on Sunday and today, the Coast Guard said.
    Weather conditions in the search area Sunday and today included heavy snow, winds of 45-60 mph and six-foot seas, the Coast Guard said.
    The Coast Guard announced suspension of the search in a news release at 12:15 p.m. today:
    “We stand in sorrow and solidarity with the friends and family of the people we were not able to find over the past 24 hours,” said Chief Warrant Officer James Koon, a search and rescue mission coordinator at Coast Guard Sector Southeast Alaska. “I am deeply grateful for the swiftness of our crews and other search assets who came together to amplify our efforts and completely saturate our search areas. Our collective hearts are with the friends and families of the who are experiencing the effects from this loss.”
    Today’s online newsletter of the Anchorage Daily News reported comments from the captain and passengers aboard the ferry Hubbard which was first to the scene. The ferry, carrying a few dozen crew and 110 passengers, was making the run from Tenakee Springs, Angoon and Kake back to Juneau  when the Hubbard picked up the Wind Walker’s mayday call on VHF radio Channel 16.
    “They heard a brief emergency mayday call from the Wind Walker that the boat was capsizing and they were attempting to get into a life raft,” AMHS spokesman Sam Dapcevich said in the newsletter. “No further transmissions were heard.”
    The newsletter said Tamara Jack, a passenger on the ferry, said the captain announced the vessel was diverting to the mayday call just after leaving Tenakee Springs. Passengers gathered together –– “even if we didn’t know everyone, we formed a circle, held hands and prayed,” she said.
    Jack said passengers kept an eye out through the Hubbard’s ice-coated windows, and the crew took turns standing watch outside, and blared the horn. The captain described the weather to Dapcevich as 50-knot winds from the north, driving snow, freezing spray, 6 to 8 foot winds and “almost no visibility.”
    The ferry crew could see Wind Walker’s location on the Hubbard’s vessel tracking system but lost the signal at 12:18 a.m. just over 10 minutes after the mayday call, and notified the Coast Guard of the position. With coordination from the Coast Guard, the ferry started a grid search at 1 a.m., Dapcevich told the Anchorage Daily News.
    Hubbard stayed on scene until it was released from the search at 10 a.m. Sunday, the newspaper reported.