The Alaska Ranger - shitty job, shitty boat

The Alaska Ranger, which sank Mar 23, 2008 killing five crew, in Dutch Harbor(Photo by U.S Coast Guard) .
Based on the TV show The Deadliest Catch the general public may get the impression that the Alaska fishing fleet is made up of small but seaworthy boats like The Time Bandit and the
Northwestern with experienced captains like third generation fisherman Sig Hansen with an experienced crew with maybe one greenhorn, often the younger brother of another crew member.

That's not the whole story. At the other end of the spectrum , its about Gulf of Mexico mud boats, beat to hell in the Gulf and then sold cheap to low cost / high profit companies like The Fishing Company of Alaska (FCA) , converted to factory trawlers and run by down on their luck fisherman, crewed by inexperienced fish factory workers.


From GQ, The Longest Night

Kenny had a shitty job on a shitty boat.....He was one of forty-seven captain and crew on the Ranger, a 200-foot tub that sailed out of Dutch Harbor,..... She was built in 1972, with a flat bottom designed for the warm, calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, then retrofitted into a head-and-gut trawler and bought cheap at auction in the ’90s by the Fishing Company of Alaska. She had a new factory, where the fish were processed, but the rest of her was old and decrepit, with seals painted over so many times that the doors wouldn’t latch tight and a rusty shell that had been patched and rewelded over the years. That flat bottom gave her an unnatural, unnerving roll in the big swells of the Bering Sea, but she could stuff well over a million pounds of fish in her holds before she’d have to off-load at Dutch.

The real scandal though is not that captains, mates and engineers have to work on an unseaworthy vessel, at least they know they're risking their lives to make a buck. What about the men and women recruited to work in the fish processing factory? Many of them have never been to sea, are out of work, out of cash and out of luck, and are lured by the promise of a relatively high paying job but have little concept what they are in for on the Bering Sea on an old, beat to hell, converted Gulf mud boat.

Likely these workers are on the boat because they got backed into a corner and thought a job on a factory trawler was a way out, never dreamed they would find themselves, at 3 am, floating in the waters of the Bering Sea in 8-10 foot seas praying for a Coast Guard helo to pluck them out of the sea before they succumbed to hypothermia.

The reason fishing vessels have traditionally been unregulated is, in part, because presumably a professional fisherman can judge the level of risk involved in a fishing operation. This isn't the case on these "head and gut vessels" such as the Alaska Ranger. The crew hired to process the fish need not have any experience at sea and often don't. There is likely a presumption on the part of newly hired crew recruited by place like this that the company that has hired them to process catch will provide them with a safe work place. This is not the case.

K.C.

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The Alaska Ranger which sank March 23, 2008 killing five crew members was a converted Gulf of Mexico OSV (Offshore Service Vessel) sold, modified and put into service in Alaska. The Alaska Ranger was not inspected, evidently not watertight internally and not seaworthy.

The Ranger was built in 1973 and operated as an offshore supply vessel in the petroleum industry. In 1987, the vessel was purchased by Fishing Company of Alaska, renamed the Alaska Ranger, and converted to serve in the fishing trade.

Evidently the rudder broke loose, dropped off and the steering gear room flooded. In an seaworthy vessel this alone should not be enough to cause the vessel to sink. An inspected vessel is required by regulations to be watertight internally to ensure that an incident such as this will not cause the loss of the vessel.

The Wikipedia article is here with links to audio and video.

From the NTSB:

The National Transportation Safety Board determined today that the probable cause of the sinking of the Alaska Ranger was uncontrolled, progressive flooding due to a lack of internal watertight integrity and to a breach of the hull's watertight envelope, likely caused by the physical loss of a rudder.

Regulations do not require that vessel like the Ranger be inspected.

Most commercial fishing vessels are exempt from U. S. Coast Guard inspection by law and must comply with only minimal safety requirements for lifesaving and fire protection equipment. The Alaska Ranger was part of a group of vessels enrolled in a Coast Guard safety program called the Alternate Compliance and Safety Agreement, which subjected vessels to more than the minimal safety requirements. The Alaska Ranger was enrolled in the program but had not yet met all requirements at the time of the sinking.

"Because commercial fishermen are involved in one of the most dangerous professions in the world, it is essential that the vessels they work on be subject to mandatory safety inspections," said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman.

Somehow these vessel still manage to dodge regulations.

the NTSB’s recommendation that the Coast Guard seek legislative authority to inspect commercial fishing vessels (Safety Recommendation M-87-64) has not met with a similar success. Although in 1992, the Coast Guard submitted a plan to Congress that would require inspection of all commercial fishing industry vessels, Congress did not grant that additional authority. As a result, the commercial fishing vessel industry is still largely unregulated.

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Also:

-There are some interesting comments at Bitter End post Struggle for power on doomed trawler regarding this type of vessel when they have a heavy load and the rudder stock gland is submerged. According to the NTSB report the modifications done to the Ranger when it was converted to a trawler resulted in an increase of draft of 2 and 1/4 feet.

- Another angle, fishing regulations: Jones Act Blog has posted an article regarding NTSB recommendation that the National Marine Fishery Service to review regulations intend to limit catches but which strongly discourages replacement of aged fishing vessels:

The NTSB strongly worded letter criticized NMFS policy, stating: "NMFS' decision to permit vessels to be replaced only if they are lost or deemed ineligible to fish runs contrary to the interest of safety. Replacing a vessel after it sunk is too late."

- Article from Fishing Journal The struggle for power on doomed Bering Sea trawler (PDF) good article with details about the vessel owner, The Fishing Company of Alaska and the buyer Anyo Fisheries. The owners of each were married to each other at one point.

Bryant's Maritime Blog last month posted NTSB – report on sinking of fish processing vessel Alaska Ranger- the report MAR0905 PDF here.

UPDATE: From comments - my husband was on that boat when it sank. i nearly lost him. thank you for telling it how it was. it was a disaster in the making. he said it was the roughest boat to ride on. flat bottomed boats have no business being in such rough waters. thank you kami
kami | 12.25.09 - 11:55 pm | #

Alaska Ranger thread on Deadliest Catch fan forum here.

Inside the Coast Guard's Most Extreme Rescue - From Popular Mechanics -

"For us this is pretty huge, about as big a case as you can imagine," McLaughlin reflected in the days afterward. "I've been on hoists when the boat sank in front of me. But there were five people, it was daytime," he said. The Alaska Ranger was something entirely different: "You get out there, you get on scene and you get into a hover and you look to your left, you look to your right, and you see strobe lights wherever you look. And you think, oh my God, where do I begin? Then you just pick a spot as quickly as you can and start getting people out of the water."

Towmaster's Guide to Winter Wear on the Water

The Kennebec River at Richmond, Maine. The tide was pushing the ice upriver. (Photo by K.C.) .
Winter is here, if you work on the water hereabouts or know someone who does this is a good time to review Towmasters post from last winter: Winter's almost here! - good guide to what to wear to stay warm and safe out on the water:

K.C.

Crowley's AT/B - Rule Beater

AT/B Sea Reliance - Neither Fish nor Fowl (Photo Crowley)

gcaptain has a post - ATB is Largest Ever to Transit Alaskan Waters, its about the 155,000-barrel ATB, Sea Reliance/550-1. An A.T.B is an "Articulated Tug / Barge.

The question is why is Crowley using this rig, which is 600 feet long instead of a tanker? The answer is manning regulations.

From this article History of the AT/B

As an example a typical U.S. flag, Jones Act Tanker without a large amount of automation to reduce the overall manning requirements would have a crew of about 19 to 27 people. Whereas a typical U.S. flag, Jones Act conventional tug and barge or for that matter an AT/B with a tank barge, with the same cargo carrying capability can operate with as few as 7 people, but seldom more than 10.

If a 600 foot tanker is required to have 20 crew members why is this rig safe to operate with only 7-10 crew. Either the tanker has too many or the tug too few. I wonder if the mate and captain work 6 and 6 with the mate doing all the cargo work?

Defenders of AT/B claim that they are not "rule-beaters" but have advantages over ships beyond lower crew and construction costs. If that was true wouldn't you expect to see them outside the U.S.? In fact it is rare to see a tug and barge outside the U.S unless it is a specialized tow.

A tug and tow near Wandelaar
Japan's inland sea is crowded with all kinds of small ships, LNG tankers, oil tankers, small car ship and container ships. In apperarnce they look like a deep-sea ship, just smaller. Europe is the same way, you rarely see a tug with a barge there.

When we get bunkers overseas it is almost never from a barge but from a bunker ship such as the one below. In the United States on the other hand it is almost always from a barge, pushed by a tug.

Bunker ship SPABunker Twenty coming alongside in Gibraltar (Photo by K.C.)
Towmasters has this to say about such a rig:

Generally, they’re a proven vessel design and in several fundamental ways they are significantly safer than conventional towing vessels. They’re also more efficient and capable of operating safely in weather that would leave conventional tugs either weather-bound or engaging in unnecessarily risky voyages while trying to compete with the ATB’s. They are not, however, towing vessels in any honest sense of the term. So why should they be regulated as if they were?

For all intents and purposes this is a ship but the Coast Guard has ruled that it is instead, an uninspected towing vessel pushing an unmanned barge. This means that it must meet much lower manning and inspection standards then a ship with the same capacity would.

Sending a load of oil to Alaska by water shouldn't be about bureaucrats and lawyers sitting together in an office somewhere scrutinizing the law hoping the Coast Guard will see things their way. The coastwise route to Alaska is up the Inside Passage and then across the Gulf of Alaska , on of roughest bodies of water on earth. Vessels built to transit these water should be designed for the sea, not to dodge regulations intended to both make the mariners job easier and safer and to protect the environment.

K.C.

UPDATE: I've edited this post a couple of times for clarity.

Popeye or Sissified Socialist?

Popeye the Sailor Man
Yesterday I came across this post - Maersk Alabama Crew vs Somali Pirates: American Heroes or Obama’s Men? at the site RightPundits.com posted at the time of the hijacking of the Alabama which says:

One pictures the rough men of the Maersk Alabama grizzled from years of the high-seas, wrapped in tattoos, smoking, drinking and swearing their way around the globe.

And:

we reluctantly contrast this Warholian Americana image with an emerging whiny entertainment culture which produced a skinny metro-sexual president who humorously bowled a 63 score while wearing a tie.

Also:

That separates this American crew from others is our unique American culture. We are a rugged people of individual responsibility who are culturally empowered to make our own destiny in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. That is our way, the way of all Americans who preceded the rise of Barack Obama’s men and the vaporous allure of sissified socialism. Now with frittering bailout after bailout emanating from our Washington tax dollars, one suspects that the most precious aspect of American culture is dying under the weight of a girlish nanny state.

Does my stance against arming crews (here Arming Merchant Crews) and here Armed Crews mean that I am not in the rugged tattoo, smoking, drinking, swearing culturally empowered category but instead in the sissified socialism whiny skinny metro-sexual girlish nanny state category?

I don't have a tattoo, don't smoke, but I do have an occasional beer and also in my defense, I don't like to wear a tie, I am not skinny and I do swear from time to time, but usually when using Microsoft Outlook, is there any middle ground here?

K.C.

Maersk Alabama - Instructions or Warnings?

Maersk Alabama leaves Mombasa, Kenya, April 21, 2009. (Photo from Wikipedia)

The Maersk Alabama has made two brief reappearances in the news, when she was attacked a second time, reported on the 18th of November, and then again, on the 2nd of December, when four crew members filed a lawsuit against the owners.

Each reappearance has featured a interview of the Chief Engineer of the Alabama. I noticed a miss-match between what the Chief Engineer is reported saying and what is being reported elsewhere regarding the instructions to the captain.

Tampa Bay Online reports :

Perry says he has obtained several e-mails from Maersk to its captains at the time telling them about the dangers in the area.

The e-mails, says Perry, told ships to stay 600 miles off the coast of Somalia.

The AP on the other hand is reporting this:

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that maritime safety groups issued at least seven such warnings in the days before outlaws boarded the Maersk Alabama in the Gulf of Aden, about 380 miles offshore.

From the captain's point of view there is a big difference between these two, one is reporting instructions to the ship by the owner and the other is reporting safety warnings sent to the ship.


What Chief Engineer Perry seems be saying is that the captain was specifically instructed by Maersk to stay the safe distance off the coast of Somali and that he disregarded those instructions. That means that Maersk, the owner, decided that the additional costs of an extra 1- 1/2 days was worth the gain in safety and that Capt Phillips overruled Maersk. In this case Capt Phillips will have a very difficult time defending his choice of route.

On the other hand if what the AP is reporting is correct, that the ship received warning with recommendations to stay 600 miles offshore, that is an entirely different matter. This 600 mile warning is generic boilerplate and is included on almost every pirate warning. In this case Maersk expected Capt Phillips to delivery the ship's cargo to its destination at the lowest possible cost while at the same time keeping the degree of risk at a reasonable level.

Chief Engineer Perry may have been miss-quoted or perhaps he has not distinguished between instructions to the master from Maersk and generic warnings received by the ship.

K.C.

The Site Information Dissemination has a post with details about the warnings and the route of the Alabama here.

IMO Concerned Over Risk of Spill From Maran Centaurus

From yesterdays post at Bryant's Maritime Blog :

IMO Secretary-General expresses concern over hijacked tanker -

Mr. Mitropoulos is concerned that, while any hijacking incident is to be deplored because of its impact on the seafarers on board, the potential for ecological disaster, in an area of the world that presently lacks the infrastructure, equipment, resources and expertise to cope with it, makes this a particular case.

The tanker is the fully loaded 300,000-ton VLCC Maran Centaurus (photo) which was hijacked on 29 November and is currently anchored off Hobyo, Somalia. The concern is bad weather and an unsafe anchorage:

Weather conditions are said to be changing for the worse in the area which, coupled with reported unsafe anchorage conditions, has led to concerns that the vessel might be damaged by grounding, leading to its cargo being spilled and resulting in serious ecological damage.

This information is intended for a layman, it is too vague to evaluate the actual level of risk. Is there truly cause for concern or is this warning intended to highlight the danger in general?

K.C

Deep Sea Captain Wages.

Casco Bay Boater Blog has posted an article By Steve Huettel,of St. Petersburg Times The High Cost of Bringing the Biggest Boats to Port .

The article is about a dispute between a trade group and the Florida Pilots. From the article:

State harbor pilots earn average annual compensation of $369,000, according to a study sponsored by the Florida Alliance of Maritime Organizations. That’s far more than professions with similar responsibilities, such as ship captains ($230,000) and airline captains (up to $225,000), the group says.

The Alliance is claiming a ship captain makes $230,000 a year, according to the federal government, from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

the top 10 percent earned over $89,230. Annual pay for captains of larger vessels, such as container ships, oil tankers, or passenger ships may exceed $100,000, but only after many years of experience.

How many captains sailing large deep-sea container ships or tankers are making $230,000 or more? Not very many.

K.C.

"It's Your Ship" by Capt Abrashoff

"It's your ship" by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff offers up the usual suspects:

Take Command
Lead by Example
Listen Aggressively
Communicate Purpose and Meaning
Create a Climate of Trust
Look for Results, Not Salutes
Take Calculated Risks
Go Beyond Standard Procedure
Build Up Your People
Generate Unity
Improve Your People's Quality of Life

I agree, with somewhat less enthusiasm, with these Amazon's customer reviews. A excerpt from the book here.

Anyone that regularly reads leadership literature will be familiar with the principles behind Capt. Abrashoff's success. With makes this book worth a read are the anecdotes used to support his points.

I was surprised by Capt Adrashoff assertion that the Navy teaches it officers not to listen to the enlisted personnel, that was the case when I was in the Coast Guard thirty years ago, but I though modern navy leadership might be a little more progressive, evidently that is not the case.


One eye-opener, an anecdote (page 98) about boarding paperwork the ship was required to fill out while on patrol in the Persian Gulf. A Petty Officer suggests keeping a data base of information on ships which have been previously boarded. This cuts the time needed to file a report in half. No surprise there, on the merchant side we have to be very aggressive about reducing the workload, otherwise, with limited resources, you'd be quickly swamped with work. In the case of the Navy however:

"Commondore Duffy...was astounded by the computerized database. "We have been boarding ships in the Gulf for the past six years," he said, "and no one has ever come up with the idea to catalog all this information"

Wow, I find it astounding that, in six years, this idea never was put into practice. This, in part, explains Capt Adrashoff success. No doubt he is an exceptional talented and charismatic leader and apparently a good seaman, however, on the merchant side, making operations more efficient is very difficult because all the low hanging fruit has, in most cases, already been picked. Evidently, in the Navy, this is not the case.

It's worth a read, don't expect any new revelations about leadership, provides an inside look at a Navy ship from the Captain's point of view.

K.C.