Posted on 03/23/2006 4:06:09 PM PST by Daralundy
PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. (CP) - Two passengers are now believed to have died in the sinking of a B.C. Ferry, despite early reports that all aboard were rescued.
B.C. Ferries president David Hahn said Thursday hope began fading when reports the middle-aged couple was seen among rescued passengers Wednesday turned out to be false. "They're likely on the ship," he said. "I would prefer that we're sitting here 12 hours from now and they turn up somewhere. I'd be thrilled. I think everybody would.
"(But) I don't have data that steers me to another point. I don't like it. It's a bad scenerio."
The Queen of the North sank early Wednesday morning about an hour after striking a rock near Gil Island. The ship was four hours into its 15-hour trip through the Inside Passage to Port Hardy from Prince Rupert.
Initial reports claimed all the passengers and crew had made it to Hartley Bay, a remote First Nations village not far from the wreck site.
But the numbers fluctuated from 99 to 102, partly because B.C. Ferries had no firm idea who was actually on board the ship, Hahn admitted.
There is no procedure to confirm who boarded the ship after booking a ticket, he said.
"There were at least three or four instances of, if you will, shifting of passengers on board the vessel," said Hahn.
For example, an employee gave his girlfriend a pass, which is against the rules.
In another case, one member of a party of four passengers opted not to travel. There was also a school group aboard in which one student was substituted for another without changing the name on the manifest, Hahn said.
But there's every indication Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette, both of 100 Mile House, B.C., did board the vessel.
Foisy's brother, George Foisy, saw them off at the dock Tuesday evening, his last memory of them a digital image in his camera.
Hahn said B.C. Ferries contacted the couple's relatives to find out if they had found their own way out of Hartley Bay, which has no road and is accessible only by water and air.
RCMP were still checking Hartley Bay but Hahn said there's now no sign they were ever there.
"What we're doing right now is checking into all the rumours and unconfirmed reports that we heard yesterday that the people were seen here and there," said Const. Alain Beulieu.
Hahn refused to fault the ship's crew for any mixup. The crew has been widely praised for the cool way they handled the evacuation.
"I know that they specifically went through and knocked on every door," he said.
"Did they go through and open each and every cabin door? I don't know the answer to that yet and won't do until they do all the interviews."
Other passengers told of being hussled out of their cabins by crewmembers and helped into lifejackets.
Hahn said it's hard to believe Foisy and Rosette could have slept through the crisis - alarms ringing, the ship listing on its side and the sound of water rushing into the vessel through a large gash in its bottom.
"This is a pretty catastrophic tearing of the hull," he said. "So for that ship to take on that much water, the amount of noise and effort, it's pretty hard to imagine somebody couldn't have heard it."
Hahn said the first priority, along with containing any potential environmental damage, will be to investigate the wreck for any sign of the missing couple.
The ship could be as far as 350 metres beneath the surface.
There's still little indication of how the ferry, which can carry up to 700 passengers, ended up striking a rock in a well-charted channel it transits regularly.
"There was any number of different radars, GPS, electronic charting systems, everything," said Hahn.
"The ship was clearly off course when something occurred . . .There was more than enough electronic information there that should have triggered some sort of concern around the location of the ship."
Hahn said crew members were allowed to rest Wednesday and formal interviews began Thursday.
Hahn did not know how fast the ferry was going as it entered Wright Sound but said a normal nighttime cruising speed might be between 15 and 21 knots.
Passengers loitered in Prince Rupert hotels, most dressed in the clothes they wore the night of the sinking or, if they fled in pyjamas, clothes donated by Hartley Bay residents.
A number were waiting to be interviewed by B.C. Ferries officials and government investigators.
One of them was Capt. Edward Dahlgren, B.C. Ferries' supervising captain for its northern service.
Dahlgren was travelling on the Queen of the North on company business and was asleep in his cabin when the ship ran aground.
He lost his belongings, including his car.
"Some of my effects now reside in a different place," he said wryly.
Dahlgren would not comment on the accident but praised the ship's crew and the passengers.
"We can't thank our passengers enough that they prevented this situation from getting out of hand by obeying the directions of the officers and crew and behaving in an exemplary manner," he said.
"My officers and crew fulfilled their obligation and the laws of the sea in the finest traditions."
ping!
ping
this is very sad news. i really think if they had made it out they would have contacted someone by now.
I'm heading to Sitka up the Inside Passage from Bellingham, WA on the Malispina of the Alaska Marine Highway System on May 30 with three of my family members... We return on the Columbia in late June to Bellingham...
Hmmm... This was a 409 foot ship; it wasn't a puddle jumper.
A pause for the cause; and I'll board! Can't wait to fish with my cousin who is a charter captain in Sitka!!!
i hope you are taking a camera as well as your fishing pole. :)
LOL!
I may be loopy, but I'm hard to throw!
that's what i like. honesty. LOL
"We can't thank our passengers enough that they prevented this situation from getting out of hand by obeying the directions of the officers and crew and behaving in an exemplary manner," he said.
"My officers and crew fulfilled their obligation and the laws of the sea in the finest traditions."
#####
These words bring tears.
Very sad loss of a vessel, and possibly two passengers, but how much worse it could have been.
You said -- "Very sad loss of a vessel, and possibly two passengers, but how much worse it could have been."
I've been keeping up on that news since I first saw it. Since I rode on the Queen of the North, many years ago -- I feel connected in a way. It's a very special and unique kind of ferry trip, in that it takes so long to travel up to Prince Rupert from Port Hardy. And also, in that they had staterooms on board. It wasn't a normal kind of ferry.
I guess you never know if that sort of thing may happen to you, if you ride on any kind of ship. That is a pretty desolate area where that ship traveled, although very, very scenic. It's fortunate that the accident happened right next to a village -- where the people rushed to their boats to rescue the ferry travelers -- in the middle of the night. The townspeople were the first on the scene to help those passengers.
The whole town got moving -- immediately -- upon hearing the news on their radios (which they apparently keep going all night long because of things like this).
I read other articles where the passengers were in their lifeboats and watching the ship go down -- with a load roar and sucking sound, and hearing the cars break away from their holdings, on the ship. What a story.
Regards,
Star Traveler
I have not traveled on Queen of the North, but I have sailed in yachts to and from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy several times. It is exquisitely beautiful land and water and people.
The sea is unforgiving. I was struck by the magnificent behavior of the Hartley Bay folks.
I like to think, from my own experience, that this is still the way it is in rural and northern Canada, far away from the media-addled cities.
Despite the heartbreak of the shameful Liberal years, I'm still proud to be Canadian.
Thanks- Had had wondered why she foundered so quickly. My family has sailors from 'way back- Cape Hatteras. "A ship is a hole in the sea- waiting to be filled with... water."
More details have come in:
http://shorterlink.com/?B1XJ1Z
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=57197&sid=a9d57d5104d951ade22df17b5449c02a
Thanks Backhoe.
If she hadn't gotten hung up on Gil's rock, she would have sunk like a stone.
She was a pretty vessel, and it's a shame about the loss of life, however small.
To quote myself from Free Dominion:
"She was renamed? Old sailors consider that really bad juju.
I come from a family of sailors- formerly Cape Hatteras, in the days of sail- and the story is, a ship is a she, and she has a soul- and when you rename her, she can't find her way. ( Ouch! The QotN surely lost her way... )
Yes, some regard it as superstition, but if you review the history of shipwrecks, an awful lot of them were renamed, and later foundered."
You said -- "If she hadn't gotten hung up on Gil's rock, she would have sunk like a stone."
Yeah, I read that detail, too. Now, the island that she hit was Gil Island. It took me a long time to sort out all the details and get the maps and then find out exactly what they were talking about. But, I finally did.
Gil Island is a big island, so it wasn't getting hung up on that "island", per se. Yeah, on a rock (or "point"), but not on that island. The area of the island where she hit was called San Juan Point (or on another map, called Juan Point). It's further down the course for where the Queen of the North would have been going. The first possible contact point for the Queen of the North (in regards to Gil Island) was (or could have been) Blackfly Point. I was trying to figure out exactly where she hit. And then I read in one article that it was San Juan point. That's a point on Gil Island that is the farthest east out into Wright Sound.
Now, as the Queen of the North would have been coming out of that long straight channel (I think it's called Grenville Channel; but not sure). They were supposed to be looking for a navigation light on the port side. That navigation light would be at Sainty Point. That's where they would make their course correction to avoid Gil Island.
When they hit Gil Island at San Juan Point, they were 1.7 kilometers off course, going almost top speed -- 19 knots (top speed being 20 knots).
She drove straight into the point, going almost top speed and literally ripped the hull apart. It's like the stories that I read where the crewman was awakened by the noise and there was already ankle-deep water in his cabin. By the time he got his pants on -- it was chest-deep. It was coming in fast.
Now, one more thing -- I understand from reading those articles that the Queen of the North was supposed to call in to the Coast Guard when they passed that navigation light, where they were supposed to make the course correction (at Sainty Point). I would like to know if the Coast Guard got that call from her, or not. I guess we'll find out. That call (whether it was made or not) will tell a lot.
Well, that's about all I know.
I would also like to find out the exact lattitude and longitude of the wreck, if anyone knows. I'll be back up that way again, and I'll have my GPS with me this time. I'll track it.
Regards,
Star Traveler
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.