Two bodies found in area where fishing vessel disappeared

Forty-knot winds and high seas dimmed hopes for finding any of a 15-person crew alive after their trawler went down in the icy Bering Sea in what could be the worst fishing-vessel catastrophe in Alaskan waters in two decades.

Two bodies were located Monday and one was recovered by the missing Arctic Rose's sister ship as it scoured the area. The ship is owned by a Seattle company and many of its crew are from the Northwest.

NOTE: This article has been updated since it was originally published in the newspaper.

More rough weather Tuesday hampered searching, and high winds prevented Coast Guard helicopters from taking part in the search.

The seas about 200 miles northwest of St. Paul Island were relatively calm when an automatic distress beacon began signaling early Monday morning, but continued to swell with waves that were expected to reach 20 to 25 feet with winds up to 50 knots by nightfall.

Roger Wetherell, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman, said a C-130 airplane spotted a lifeboat, which turned out to be empty. A search of the surrounding area turned up only trace amounts of debris -- a small oil slick and some survival suits -- from the 92.5-foot trawler.

"It doesn't look as good as it did when I heard that they'd spotted the lifeboat," said Dave Gauvin, director of the Groundfish Forum, a trade association for the small catcher-processor vessels such as the Arctic Rose.

Wetherell said Monday night the Polar Star icebreaker, which was returning from a mission on the ice pack, was on the scene early Tuesday morning. He said the Coast Guard would use "every possible means to find survivors" before making the presumption that the crew has perished.

The Arctic Rose was based in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and owned by Arctic Sole Seafoods of Seattle.

Gauvin said the boat's owner, David Olney of the Duvall-Carnation area near Seattle, splits the skipper's duties with Dave Rundall, who lives part of the year in Hawaii. Rundall, who Gauvin described as a seasoned skipper, had taken charge of the boat three weeks ago.

Gauvin said some of the 15 missing men were from the Seattle-Tacoma area. But others came from places outside Washington including Montana, Hawaii, and Oregon. (A href="/local/victs03ww.shtm.">see list.)

The ship left St. Paul Island Saturday for the April opening of the flathead sole season. It was expected to stay at sea about two weeks.

The ship last contacted its sister ship, the Alaskan Rose, which was about 7 miles away, at 10:30 p.m Sunday. But the Alaskan Rose received no mayday signal before the automatic beacon activated along hydrostatic life rafts five hours later, which indicates things went bad fast.

Gauvin said at this time of year, freezing mists cause problems for crab boats because ice builds up on the pots, which makes them top heavy, but he said that problem isn't as prevalent on trawlers.

"It's really hard to say what went wrong," said Wetherell, of the Coast Guard. A routine at-sea safety inspection of the Arctic Rose in February found no violations, according to Coast Guard records.

The last time the vessel had a full-blown safety inspection at dockside was Sept. 2, 1999.

Wetherell said the 38-degree Fahrenheit waters are dangerous but that in recent years deaths from fishing-vessel wrecks were decreasing largely because of education programs.

From 1987 to 1992, from 33 to 39 fishermen died each year. A new Coast Guard rule mandating emergency beacons, crew drills, life rafts and survival suits cut those tragedies by half. Last year there were 11 commercial-fishing related deaths off Alaska, Wetherell said.

If no survivors are found, the accident would be the worst fishing disaster in Alaskan waters since the Japanese trawler Akebono Maru capsized 50 miles north of Adak on Jan. 5, 1982, killing 32 people.

The Aleutian Enterprise sank in March 1990, killing nine men.

Casperson summed up his anxiety for the crew of the Arctic Rose in a statement: "Our prayers are with the crew and their families."

Commercial fishing vessel-related deaths off the coast of Alaska:

1993 - 23

1994 - 12

1995 - 19

1996 - 16

1997 - 11

1998 - 10

1999 - 15

2000 - 11

Source: Coast Guard District Headquarter records.