Lady Mary Hearing Recesses with More Questions Than Answers

CAPE MAY — This phase of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigations hearing into the sinking of the fishing boat Lady Mary closed Thursday Nov. 5 leaving more questions than answers as to whether the boat was unstable or was hit by a large ship.
The hearing this week concentrated on the condition and stability of the Lady Mary, a 77-foot former shrimp boat modified to become a scallop dredge boat.
Board Chairman CMDR Kyle McAvoy questioned Royal Smith, the Lady Mary’s shore manager Thursday on a number of details on the vessel such as why he installed a chaffing bar on a stay cable for the port boom, why a port flat bar had scrape marks on it and if the boat carried an anchor. Smith said the boat carried an anchor but never used it.
Bill Semrau, program manager of the Northeast Monitoring System of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) testified at an earlier hearing in May. At that time he brought charts that tracked the movement of the Lady Mary and 22 other fishing boats that were nearby when it sunk.
The Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) tracks the movement of commercial fishing vessels by sending a signal to satellites every 30 minutes. The system is used to make sure boats follow federal regulations of where and when they can fish in restricted areas.
The Lady Mary was equipped with a Boatracs VMS system. Testifying by phone Nov. 5, Semrau said he examined data showing other vessels in the vicinity of the Lady Mary two hours before its final reported position from VMS March 24 at 5:10 a.m.
From 11:05 p.m. March 23 to 1:05 a.m. March 24, several vessels were in the area of the Lady Mary with the closest boat one and a half miles away. Semrau said he went back two hours earlier in time to from 9:10 p.m. to 11:10 p.m. March 23 and looked at the track of a boat he referred to as Vessel Y.
Vessel Y was moving at less than 2 knots while the Lady Mary was running at 2.5 knots, said Semrau. He said he estimated at 9:48 p.m. March 23 they came as close as 120 yards to each other although there is an error rate on VMS equipment of about 300 meters or less.
Stevenson Weeks, attorney for Royal Smith told the Herald the Lady Mary had too much damage to have been caused by another fishing boat. The Lady Mary sank about 5 a.m. on March 24. He told the Herald the Lady Mary has damage underneath as if it was struck by a large ship with a bulbous bow.
Semrau reviewed scallop catch reports from the Lady Mary transmitted to NMFS on March 22 and 23 that showed no catch on those two days. He said it seemed unusual not to catch any scallops for 48 hours unless there was equipment or weather-related problems.
Weeks told the Herald the two days where no scallops were reported to have been caught must have been a data glitch since Royal Smith Jr. reported to his father by satellite phone they had brought in 2,500 pounds on those two days. The Lady Mary was preparing to return to port the day she sank with 12,500 pounds of scallops on board, said Weeks.
LTJG Matthew Glazewski, a commissioned NOAA officer and meteorologist with the Ocean Prediction Center, offered a PowerPoint presentation looking at weather forecasts for the area where the Lady Mary sank from March 21 to March 24.
The forecast at 8 a.m. on March 23 called for winds from the north-northwest at 20 to 30 knots with seas of six to 10 feet, he said. On March 24, the weather was being influenced by high pressure over Quebec and a low pressure storm system off the Canadian Maritimes. A pressure gradient between the two weather systems was influencing wind and wave height where the Lady Mary was located, said Glazewski.
At 2 a.m. March 24, seas were 6 to 9 feet with winds 20-25 knots from the north-northwest. Those conditions were also present at 8 a.m.
Jorge Arroyo, a program and management analyst at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington D.C. explained Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), collision avoidance and coastal surveillance system carried by large commercial ships over 300 gross tons. He said AIS gives the ship’s position, speed, heading and rate of turn.
Fishing boats are not required to carry AIS, said Arroyo. He said it broadcasts the data over VHF radio signal with a range of 40 to 50 miles. Coast Guard Cape May’s radio tower was on the fringe of receiving a signal from the area where the Lady Mary went down.
Brian Curtis, a National Transportation Safety Board Investigator, asked if the AIS could be turned off by someone on a ship. Arroyo said while it is required to remain on, it could be shut off by turning off the unit or pulling its power plug.
Arroyo displayed tracking information for the cargo ship Cap Beatrice which is believed to have passed within a mile of the Lady Mary near the time of its sinking.Cap Beatrice’s AIS signal was not available for six hours after the time the Lady Mary sank.
McAvoy said the hearing would resume at future date perhaps by conference phone calls. He said the National Transportation Safety Board was examining the Lady’s Mary’s rudder and working up a computer model to test the stability of the Lady Mary.
Weeks said he has renewed his request to subpoena the owner, captain and mate of the fishing vessel, the Dictator which was struck 22 days after the Lady Mary by the Marine Floridian, a large commercial ship. The Dictator suffering very similar damage to the Lady Mary.
A volunteer dive team that shot video and photos of the fishing boat 210 feet below the ocean’s surface has also gone on record as believing the Lady Mary was struck by large freighter, possibly the Cap Beatrice.