Adak, where the Alaska Juris crew arrived Wednesday, is about 175 miles southeast of where the vessel ran into trouble.
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Two ships brought 46 people to safety after they abandoned their sinking fishing boat and boarded life rafts off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
The U.S. Coast Guard received a radio beacon alert from the 220-foot Alaska Juris around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and contacted the crew to see if they needed help about 700 miles off the Alaskan coast and 150 miles northwest of Adak Island.
By, evening, all 46 crew-members, employed by the Fishing Company of Alaska, a Renton, Washington business, were underway on a 13-hour trip to Adak aboard the Spar Canis.
“One of the big focuses of the program was making sure that the crews had sufficient training to get safely into the water”, said Chris Woodley, a former Coast Guard safety official who helped launch “alternative compliance”.
There were no reports of any injuries.
Weather on scene was reported as calm seas and limited visibility.
A representative of the vessel’s owner said that a spokesperson would return a request for comment later.
“I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon for a fishing vessel like this to become distressed”, he said. The Seafisher and Ocean Peace also responded to the Coast Guard’s marine information broadcast calling for help.
The agency diverted a cutter and dispatched two C-130 transport planes and two helicopters to the sinking ship near Kiska Island, which is about 690 miles west of Dutch Harbor, one of the nation’s busiest fishing ports.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is monitoring the vessel.
Crew members of the fishing vessel, Alaska Juris, were forced to abandon ship after it started taking on water in the Bering Sea.
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2012 was an especially problematic year since in March a crew member was killed when a trawling cable snapped and smashed the young fisherman against the ship’s floor. The Coast Guard flew the trio to Cold Bay, where an airplane was waiting to fly them to Anchorage. A Coast Guard investigation concluded in 2011 that the vessels owner failed to properly maintain its structural condition. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
