Lady Mary Diver Shows Video at Coast Guard Hearing

CAPE MAY- After a five month recess, a Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigations resumed its hearing on the sinking of the fishing boat Lady Mary Monday Oct. 2 by watching video and still photographs taken of the vessel in its resting place 210-feet under the sea.
The Lady Mary sank 60 miles off the coast of Cape May on March 24 taking the lives of six crew members.
A team of divers brought back crystal clear video of the sunken scallop boat. Steve Gatto along with Harold Moyers, Tom Packer, Rustin Cassway, Bart Malone, Joe Mazzrani, Bradley Sherd and Paul Whitticker volunteered their time.
The team made three dives between May 12 and June 28.
They recovered the body of Bernie “Tarzon” Smith who was found covered by boards in the boat’s fish hold. His survival suit was nearby but he was not wearing it, said Gatto.
Gatto narrated the video for a three person Coast Guard board and National Transportation Safety Board Investigator Brian Curtis. He said the ramp at the rear of the boat appeared to have been bent downward as well as split. Two stay wires that held the gallows to the ramp were broken off. A lazarette hatch support was bent inward.
The dredge was aboard containing scallops as if it had just been dragged up and put on deck, said Gatto.A photo taken in the wheelhouse shows the rudder indicator showing the rudder hard to port.
Gatto said the lazarette post was driven into the transom and the back of the transom was caved inward. He said there was a six inch hole on the port side above the waterline. In the video, a crushed in, concave area appears on the port side.The starboard stabilizer was askew and not inside its cradle.
Gatto said the boat’s propeller shaft was bent downward while the prop was driven into the keel. The Lady Mary’s rudder was found lying in the sand, still attached to the boat by a chain.
Coast Guard LCDR. Tracy Phillips asked Gatto if the dive team saw any survival suits in the wheelhouse. He said a survival suit, still in its bag, was seen in the wheelhouse and another suit, out of its bag and unrolled, was seen in the boat’s cutting room.
Antonio Alvernaz, captain of the scallop boat Katherine Marine testified by telephone he heard a one second call on his marine radio around 4:30 a.m. the day of the Lady Mary’s sinking but could not make out what the person was saying. He said it sounded garbled with a heavy foreign accent. He said it could have been a “very frantic Mayday call.”
Alvernaz said he radioed back for the person to repeat the message but there was no reply. He said he scanned the horizon for flares but did not see any. He said there were 20 boats within six miles of the Lady Mary.
At 4:30 a.m. the seas were running 10 to 12 feet with a 35 knot wind, said Alvernaz. He said he was scanning on two radars, one on one-quarter mile range and the other on one-half mile range.
Marine Board Chairman LCDR Kyle McAvoy asked Alvernaz if he called the Coast Guard after hearing the garbled radio call. Alvernaz said he did not.
Attorney Stevenson Lee Weeks is representing the family of the deceased owner of the Lady Mary, Timothy Smith and Roy Smith who lost both a brother and two sons in the accident. Weeks asked Alvernaz if he had seen merchant vessels or large ships in the area between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. that day. Alvernaz said he had not and his radar detected only a heavy concentration of fishing boats.
In earlier hearings, Weeks presented the theory to reporters that the Lady Mary sank after its gear became entangled either with another vessel or an obstruction or it collided with the freighter Cap Beatrice that was less than a mile from the Lady Mary at the time of the sinking.