Northwest Sea Disasters: Beyond Acceptable Risk

Northwest waters off Oregon and Washington pose unique dangers to boaters. All of the navigable bars that a boater must cross to reach the ocean, such as the Tillamook Bay Bar, the Columbia River and Depoe Bay are hazardous. When a boat is in danger or actually sinks, the Coast Guard comes to the rescue. Search and rescue itself poses hazards, often times compounded by delayed or inaccurate distress calls from the captain. In addition the captain may fail to provide timely communication and leadership to crew and passengers during the crises. This book reviews the sinking of five charter boats. Four of them, the Pearl-C, Cougar, Gambler, and the Taki-Tooo accounted for the greatest loss of life in the charter boat industry in Oregon and Washington. Survivors of these charter boats provide vivid and dramatic accounts of the sinkings and search and rescue. We also review the sinking with the loss of life of the Aleutian Enterprise in the Bering Sea, crab boats off the Oregon and Washington coast, as well as the loss of the Sea King during a storm as it was being towed across the Columbia River bar. We focus on the human element in decision making during emergencies at sea, and provide guidelines for boaters to consider their own experiences at sea with respect to safety. An understanding of the hazards on our Northwest waters are important to recreational boaters who go on their private boats to fish off shore.