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CG search for missing fisherman suspended

JUNEAU, Alaska — The Coast Guard has suspended the search for the lone crew member missing from a fishing vessel that sank off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Satashi Konno of Japan has been missing since the vessel sank Sunday. Four people died of hypothermia, and 42 survived.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Gene Brooks said it was a difficult decision to end the search, but there was no sign of Konno. Konno was wearing a survival suit, but officials said survival would have been difficult in the frigid Bering Sea.

When the ship went down, waves were as high as 20 feet and winds reached nearly 30 mph.

The 203-foot Alaska Ranger was on its way to mackerel grounds when it began taking on water Sunday in rough seas. A former captain of the ship recalled the vessel Monday as being “very unstable.”

Forty-two people onboard were helped by rescue swimmers and hoisted to helicopters after the Seattle-based ship sank. Additional help came from crew members on a nearby fishing vessel. The captain and three crew members died. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the ship to sink.

A preliminary investigation shows the four men did not make it to life rafts and died of hypothermia, said Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Greg Garcia.

“It appears they were in the water for about six hours, and as you may know, the Bering Sea is phenomenally cold,” Garcia said.

“I don’t know if there wasn’t enough room in the rafts or not for them, but it sounds to me that the hierarchy wanted to assure everybody else is saved,” he said, based upon the troopers’ interviews with members of the Rangers’ sister vessel, the Alaska Warrior, which assisted in rescue efforts.

Two Colorado brothers who had considered working on the Alaska Ranger this year saw the short list of victims and were relieved to see that none of their friends were among the missing or deceased.

Will and Doug Sterner of Pueblo received updates from a friend on the ship, whom they declined to identify because the company insists crew members not speak publicly about the sinking, the Sterners said.

“They said the ship went down fast once it started going, about 15 minutes,” said 22-year-old Doug Sterner, who did one three-month stint last year on the Alaska Ranger.

“They said the captain had been very brave about the whole thing,” he said. “He was one of the last, if not the last, to abandon ship. That might have been the result of him not making it.”

The boat’s owner, the Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska, has identified the captain as Eric Peter Jacobsen, 65, of Lynnwood, Wash.

The company identified the other victims as chief engineer Daniel Cook, hometown unknown; mate David Silveira of San Diego; and crewman Byron Carrillo, believed to be from Seattle.

“Saving 42 people in Bering Sea in the winter is an incredible accomplishment,” Coast Guard Cmdr. Todd Trimpert said in a prepared statement.

Problems began early Sunday when the ship’s rudder room began taking on water. A distress call went out just before 3 a.m.

Richard Canty, now a tug boat operator in New York, captained the Alaska Ranger 12 years ago.

“There were a lot of rudder problems on that boat,” Canty said. “It was a very unstable boat.”

The vessel used to be in the Gulf of Mexico as an oil field services ship but had been converted for fishing, Canty said.

“It was a mess,” he said. “It was a top-heavy boat. It was unstable.”

Officials with the boat’s owner, the Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Jacobsen’s son, Scott Jacobsen, told KIRO-TV in Seattle the family wants to know what would cause such a large vessel to sink.

“[It] raises the question, something was wrong, went really wrong, so we’re interested in the details,” he said. “Things like that don’t just happen. My dad’s been fishing all his life and he’s never had anything remotely close to this happen.”