San Juan Islands Sinking

[centerisland]

The SanJuanIslander.com site had posted a story today about a 50' fishing vessel that capsized yesterday just off of San Juan Island:
http://www.sanjuanislander.com/county/a ... 2007.shtml

Great contributed photos, plus - more interesting - a link to a site maintained by a Vessel Assist captain who responded:
http://captrichardrodriguez.blogspot.com/

The (current) top story on that site is a 63' Stephens that he had to tow in from Cattle Pass because "They had however run out of fuel, all 1400 gallons". But there are a bunch of other interesting posts on that blog, including one about the Port Townsend Ferries "25 minutes of pleasure followed by five minutes of terror", and one covering the re-opened investigation into the sinking of the "Queen of the North". Good stuff.

 

[thataway]

A few years back we came into Cambell River. There was a good sized fishing boat which had capsized in Johnstone Straits. She was running at night with both nets, and pull boat on deck, with no ballast in the fish hold.

Many of the fishing boats depend on weight below the waterline to increase stabality. In the case of the boat we saw, apparently a young person was at the helm and over reacted to the current, putting the rudder over, and starting a heeling process which ended up in the boat capsizing and the loss of one life.