Letter from the President

The year 2000 has been very significant in AFRAS's fulfillment of its mission. In articles nearby we report on the initiatives that have led to a close working relationship with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. We also concluded formal contracts of fund raising cooperation with the Dutch Lifesaving Service (KNRM), Iceland (ICE-SAR) and Virgin Islands (VISAR).

In May, the International Lifeboat Federation (ILF) sponsored a fund raising seminar that was led by one of AFRAS's International Advisory Group members, Ian Ventham, Head of Fund Raising and Marketing for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). The meeting was held initially in Poole for first time attendees on Friday May 5 and then reconvened on Monday May 8 in Norway. The Norwegians hosted the group in magnificent fashion and the three days of meetings, with onboard time on Norsk Selskab til Skibbrudnes Redning (NSSR) lifeboats, was enormously valuable to us.

On September 26, the night before our Gold Medal Award Ceremony in Washington D.C., AFRAS hosted a dinner to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the relationship between AFRAS and the RNLI. The RNLI was represented by its Director, Andrew Freemantle CBE; and Ian Ventham. AFRAS was represented by Admiral Gracey, Chairman; David Chomeau, President and founding directors William Wilkinson and Nick Ludington. Honored guests were Admiral James Loy, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard and Mrs. Loy. Representing the Icelandic Rescue Services were Esther Gudmundsdottir and her husband. Jon Gunnarsson, Chairman of ICE-SAR joined us for the Awards Ceremony the next day.

Although a very informal dinner, the evening was made memorable by Director Freemantle’s presentation of a scroll and small statuette of a lifeboatman to Admirals Gracey and Siler (former AFRAS Chairman) and a scroll and silver badge to David Chomeau. The RNLI recognized these AFRAS officers for their services to the cause of supporting those institutions dedicated to saving lives at sea, particularly the RNLI. Admiral Loy accepted Admiral Siler's awards on his behalf, as he was unable to attend the dinner.

AFRAS Builds Relationship with U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary

AFRAS was represented at the Coast Guard Auxiliary’s National Conference (NACON 2000) held in Kansas City 31 August through 2 September by Admiral Owen Siler, President David Chomeau and Vice President John Chomeau. It proved to be an excellent opportunity to explore further the developing relationship between the Auxiliary and AFRAS. National Commodore, Everette Tucker, (also an AFRAS board member) has designated Mr. Gene Seibert to serve as a major point of contact in our effort to build Auxiliary membership in AFRAS. Gene attended our Gold Medal awards ceremony and will also assist in other efforts. We had an opportunity to talk with National Commodore elect, Mr. Viggo Bertelsen, Jr. who is quite supportive of AFRAS and facilitated setting up a link between the Auxiliary web site and the AFRAS web site.

In addition to building and renewing contacts with the Auxiliary, NACON 2000 proved to be an excellent opportunity to meet with other organizations involved in international SAR efforts. RNLI was again ably represented by Mr. Ian Ventham (who also serves on the AFRAS International Advisory Group). Both the Canadian Coast Guard and its Auxiliary were well represented as was the Coast Guard Auxiliary of the Philippines. We also had the opportunity to discuss AFRAS support with the delegation from the Virgin islands (VISAR), Italy (ISGA) and various US organizations involved in boating safety.

ADM Siler made a short presentation to the attendees on the history of AFRAS, the Gold Medal and AMVER awards and our support to the RNLI and countries such as Estonia, followed by a presentation by John Chomeau on Auxiliary membership in AFRAS and the "Silver Medal" award which will be given in 2001 to a member of the Auxiliary who demonstrates the same heroism in making a rescue at sea as demonstrated by the awardees of the Gold Medal amongst the Coast Guard. (Should there be no such awardee amongst the Auxiliary in 2001, the award will be carried forward to the next year.)

2000 AFRAS Award Ceremony

The annual AFRAS award ceremony was held on 27 September 2000 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Once again, AFRAS presented its Gold Medal to an enlisted Coast Guard person for an act of extraordinary bravery during a rescue at sea and its AMVER plaque to the captain and crew of two vessels for outstanding rescues at sea.

The Gold Medal presentation was established by the association's first chairman, Vice Admiral Thomas Sargent III, a former Vice Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. The medal is presented annually to an enlisted Coast Guard person for an act of extraordinary bravery during a rescue at sea.

AMVER (Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System) is a voluntary, worldwide ship reporting system, which is operated by the United States Coast Guard and involves ships from over 130 nations. AFRAS awarded its first plaque to an AMVER vessel involved in a rescue in 1996. Nominations for both awards are made by the USCG's Search and Rescue Division.

Approximately 100 people gathered together on Capitol Hill for the presentation of these awards. AFRAS Chairman Admiral James Gracey, USCG (Ret.) and Congressman Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland co-hosted the event. Gracey presented the awards and remarks were made by Congressman Howard Coble of North Carolina, a former Coast Guardsman and Admiral James Loy, the Commandant of the Coast Guard. The reception was made possible by a grant from Maritime Rescue International (MRI).

Foreign representatives attending included Andrew Freemantle and Ian Ventham of the RNLI of Great Britain; Hamish McDonald of MRI, Ltd. in Scotland; Esther Gudmundsdottir and Bjorgvin Jonsson of Iceland (ICE-SAR); Harry Strong, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary; Steve Daoust of the Canadian Coast Guard; Elia Manetta of the Italian Societa Nazionale Di Salvamento, Fernando Lagos of Chile and Khin Maung Min of Singapore.

Gold Medal Award

The 2000 AFRAS Gold Medal was awarded to Timothy S. Adams, Aviation Survival Technician Second Class, United States Coast Guard, on September 27 for outstanding achievement in the performance of duty during a rescue on 13 March 1999.

Petty Officer Adams was cited for heroic achievement in aerial flight while serving as rescue swimmer aboard Coast Guard helicopters 6036 and 6028 during a demanding night rescue. In response to an urgent MAYDAY from the fishing vessel ALSKA, the aircrew from Air Station Kodiak launched into the teeth of a raging blizzard. While en route to the ALSKA’s location and with ice rapidly accumulating on the aircraft, the rotor blade de-ice system failed and forced an emergency return to Kodiak. The crew switched aircraft and launched again, flying through whiteout and icing conditions to reach the search area. When three persons were located floating in survival suits; Petty Officer Adams volunteered to enter the 35-degree water to effect a rescue. As the aircraft hovered in gusting 35-knot winds, he was lowered into 6-foot seas. Working efficiently despite a leak in his dry-suit, he placed the first survivor into the basket and saw him safely hoisted. As he readied the next man, the survivor erupted in a combative rage brought on by severe hypothermia. The man began flailing and swamping Adams and his actions caused a line he had used to tie off the strobe and EPIRB to dangerously entangle both survivor and rescuer in the water. Petty Officer Adams tried to deploy his knife to cut the line, but realized that his hands were too cold to open it. He broke the line with brute strength, cleared it, and began trying to cut the line, but realized that his hands were too cold to open it. He broke the line with brute strength, cleared it, and began trying to place the survivor in the basket. The fisherman remained combative throughout several tense minutes, and the best Adams could do was to get the man sprawled across the top of the basket. The Flight Mechanic tried to exploit a narrow moment of opportunity by lifting the basket just out of the water, hoping the victim would collapse into the device. Instead, the man frantically jumped off the basket and back into the water. Adams, with exhaustion setting in and his suit filling with water, elected to go after the other survivor. Adams successfully completed a rescue of the third crewmember before being hoisted himself.

With time running out for the man below, Petty Officer Adams asked to deploy again and was lowered to the water. Despite another struggle, he secured a rescue strop in place and was hoisted in tandem with the survivor. Adams dangled precariously outside the aircraft as the flight mechanic struggled to get the fisherman’s frozen body to bend enough to enter the cabin. Only after the survivor’s suit was cut open to allow excess water to drain were the combined efforts of the flight mechanic and swimmer successful in bringing him into the aircraft. As a direct result of his skill and valor, three persons were rescued from life-threatening peril in stormy seas. Petty Officer Adams’ courage, judgement, and devotion to duty are most heartily commended and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard.

AMVER Plaque

The Association for Rescue at Sea was pleased to award the 2000 AMVER Plaques to the Chilean-flagged ship M/V ALICAHUE and the Singapore-flagged M/V NATIONAL PROGRESS.

On 7 August 1999 the Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) received a 406Mhz EPIRB alert whose call sign matched the Hong Kong-flagged, 450-foot general cargo ship M/V LADY BELLA. In view of the remote location of the alert, the JRCC queried the AMVER system and determined the M/V ALICAHUE, a 550-foot Chilean bulk carrier as the closest vessel. The JRCC contacted the ALICAHUE and requested the vessel to steam through the position and make general calls. The master agreed, and arriving on scene, the AMVER vessel reported the LADY BELLA was fighting an active fire, apparently in the accommodations area of the superstructure. ALICAHUE planned to stand by to assist if necessary. The ship was dead in the water, with its lifeboat tied alongside although the crew did not intend to abandon ship at that point. The Chilean ship agreed to confirm if LADY BELLA was in danger of sinking, and keep the JRCC informed via Inmarsat. Later reports indicated the ship’s accommodation area was burned; there was no food, no documents and no communications; and the engineroom was flooded. Since the owner was arranging a tow, the crew would standby until morning. At 0200, the fire resumed and the entire crew of 31 safely evacuated the ship to M/V ALICAHUE, enroute to Japan. The Captain and crew of M/V ALICAHUE are cited for going well beyond the call of duty; 21 hours on scene; and for their rescue of 31 crewmembers.

On 17 January 1999 the 400-foot Panamanian cargo ship M/V CAROLINE S, carrying 800 tons of river sand, experienced progressive flooding from its cargo hold to the engine room over a three-day period. A broken ship’s frame caused the ship to send a telex requesting immediate assistance. The ship’s master signaled his intention to remain on board until the last possible moment, due to sea conditions, and await responding rescue ships. The RCC diverted several AMVER ships, including the M/V NATIONAL PROGRESS, M/V IRON NEWCASTLE and M/V ORIENTAL ROAD. The ships diverted from their respective courses and were provided with updated positions of the distressed ship, which soon slowed to bare steerageway. A US Navy P-3 aircraft on scene kept IRON NEWCASTLE and NATIONAL PROGRESS aware of each other’s position enroute. As the ships closed to within 10NM, the Burmese crew was forced to abandon ship into 2 liferafts. A shotline was fired to one of the liferafts and it was hauled alongside IRON NEWCASTLE. At that point, M/V CAROLINE S fully sank. IRON NEWCASTLE recovered the first liferaft and minutes later NATIONAL PROGRESS arrived on scene with the 2nd liferaft and recovered the remaining crewmen.

The Captain and Crew of M/V NATIONAL PROGRESS are cited for their outstanding seamanship and for going beyond the call of duty to aid in rescue at sea.

(M/V IRON NEWCASTLE could not be reached to accept an award.)

Reflections on Recent Marine Disasters

By John Chomeau

News accounts of some of our recent marine disasters have prompted me to reflect on marine safety issues and lessons learned from these tragedies. The first case is the sinking of the commercial fishing boat "Linda E" (with the loss of its three crew members) off Port Washington, WI in December 1998. A Coast Guard inquiry has found that it was most likely struck by the large tug-barge combination "Michigan/Great Lakes". Two conclusions of the Coast Guard review of the incident are quite relevant: Neither the Linda E nor the Michigan/Great Lakes was maintaining a proper lookout at the time of the collision. The fishermen were apparently cleaning fish and the Michigan’s deck officer was making chart corrections (with his back turned from the bow of his ship). Moreover, neither ship was equipped with a collision avoidance alarm, although they had operating radars. The Coast Guard conclusion was that such disasters could easily be avoided if ships maintain a proper lookout and their radars are equipped with rather inexpensive collision alarms (which can be set to go off should another vessel/object get within a stipulated range from own-ship).

The second incident was the widely reported collision of a Greek ferry with a well-charted and illuminated rock in the approaches to the island of Naxos in the Aegean Sea. According to news reports, the bridge watch of the ferry upon clearing the harbor at Naxos and heading for nearby Paros, went below to watch a soccer match on TV. (There was no one on the bridge at the time of the collision).

I recently spoke with some friends who had been traveling on this ferry and had left their baggage, passports, and money on board the day before to take a side trip to Paros. They were thus left waiting for the ferry, which never arrived. They said that 79 passengers perished in this accident and the survivors who reached Paros reported that the ferry’s crew did nothing to aid the survivors. They could not find their life jackets, did not know where to find life rafts, and no collision alarm or announcement was made. I have sailed frequently through many of these islands of the Aegean and have marveled at the seamanship shown by these inter-island ferries, which pull into narrow channels and tie up at piers for 10-20 minutes to discharge and load vehicles, cargo and passengers. These huge ferries maneuver magnificently through these confined waters.

The lesson learned for passengers aboard any such commercial vessel is not to depend on the ship’s crew for information/assistance in a disaster. Some cruise lines are undoubtedly quite good at caring for their passengers, but I don't like to leave my fate in the hands of others. Upon boarding, locate your PFD, and your best escape routes to a weather deck and a lifeboat station. At the same time, locate and become familiar with fire fighting apparatus and any watertight bulkheads/doors. (As an aside, my friends also were scheduled to make a short trip on the high-speed tourist ship Zeus, which also managed to run into a rock and sink). They flew home, having recovered their belongings from the ferry, and are now in the Caribbean cruising aboard their own sailboat.

Boat/US Memberships

AFRAS now has available for its members a cooperating group agreement with Boat/US, the Boat Owners Association of the United States. AFRAS members are entitled to a ½ price annual membership in Boat/US. For those who are already members in Boat/US memberships may be renewed at the same special rate.

VISAR’s Lifeline

By special arrangements with Virgin Islands Search and Rescue (VISAR), their newsletter Lifeline will now appear on our website.

www.lifeboats.org

Visit the International Lifeboat Federation’s (ILF) new website at www.lifeboats.org.

The ILF aims to promote technical cooperation and free exchange of information between the various lifeboat marine search and rescue services of the world and so further the cause of saving lives at sea. In part, the ILF is pledged to provide technical assistance to those countries exploring how to start a marine search and rescue service to meet the International Maritime Organization (IMO) World Maritime Search and Rescue Regional Plan.

Search and Rescue archives on the new ILF website have been designed specifically to keep all this information up-to-date and accessible by all. Downloading papers is easy and is carried out directly to your computer. Members are also welcome to add papers, research data, reports and illustrations – uploading them is just like an attachment to an e-mail.

The website is a valuable tool and source of information for all ILF members and their work.

AFRAS had undertaken with our colleagues at MRI to make available a wealth of additional SAR educational and research information. All these websites will be interlinked. MRI can be found at www.mri-group.com.

Partnership

The United States Coast Guard Station, Philadelphia, and the KNRM, Harlingen Station, The Netherlands have formed a partnership. This partnership came about through the efforts of our director Bill Wilkinson and his wife Dorothy who have been longtime active supporters of the KNRM. They represented AFRAS last year at the Hague for the celebration of the 175th anniversary of the Dutch lifesaving Services.

With the able assistance of the USCG Auxiliary and CDR Stephen Minutolo (USCG), Director of Auxiliary in Philadelphia, the two groups are forming a friendship and relationship exchanging photos, letters and are in touch daily via short wave radio and e-mail. This is a developing project but both groups appear to be having a grand time getting to know one another regardless of the miles that separate them. The Wilkinsons bought USCG shirts and badges for the Dutch crew and the crew has had their pictures taken wearing them aboard their Dutch lifeboats.

Officers of AFRAS hope that other relationships between the United States and overseas sea rescue services like this one will develop.