On October 24, 2009, Captain Corey Starkes and his three-man crew of the Seafaring Legend were enroute to Twillingate to land their shrimp catch. Things were routine until just before daylight. Corey was trying to get some much-needed rest while crewman Chad Sheppard stood watch. At approximately 7 a.m., Corey was awakened by Chad’s shouts to wake up because something was wrong. Going to the wheelhouse, Corey realized the vessel was so severely listed to the port side that water was about eight inches high on the wheelhouse window. He knew his vessel was in big trouble. This is Part II of ‘You Can’t Fix It.’
Captain Corey Starkes has relived that scene over and over in his mind — the memory of the moment he came out of his bedroom and saw water all the way up to the wheelhouse window is indelibly etched in his brain.
“She was out on her side so far that I knew she wouldn’t come back from that kind of a list so I didn’t even stop to think, I just started shouting; ‘everybody up — suits on! Everybody up — suits on!’ I kept saying it because I knew that the boat was done and we were going to be lucky to get out of there alive. I was in my undershorts and so I grabbed a [survival] suit and got in — as it turned out it wasn’t mine, it was my wife’s suit and I’m 6’2” and hers was smaller than mine but it did the job.”
Chad ran below to wake his shipmates. Max’s room was on the galley (second) level but Scott’s bunk was in the forecastle below the galley. Chad managed to wake Scott, who got out of his bunk and threw three survival suits to Chad before he started getting dressed.
Scott later explained that although he could hear Corey shouting all the way up in the wheelhouse, he figured Corey was exaggerating whatever was going on so he casually got himself fully dressed and into his survival suit thinking they had plenty of time. Because he was so far down, right next to the keel, he couldn’t feel the boat’s list or sense that anything was seriously wrong.
Perhaps Scott’s calmness was a good thing because he got himself tightly and securely into his survival suit. Often, when one is in a high state of anxiety, getting into a cumbersome survival suit can be very challenging. And that appears that is what happened to 53-year-old Max Pittman that day.
Max had been asleep in his room on the second floor, above the forecastle, when Chad woke him and told him to suit up.
Chad says Max seemed fine for a few moments until he looked out the door. He says Max must have seen something that made his blood run cold and he went into a frozen state and stood motionless. As Chad tried to get Max to go up to the wheelhouse Scott arrived from below and between the two of them, they managed to push, pull and coax Max up the steps to the wheelhouse where Corey was trying frantically to upright the vessel by hauling the steering wheel as hard as he could to starboard. That didn’t work because the vessel no longer had power steering and in his desperation, Corey realized that he had been trying to turn the wheel so hard that he had injured both his hands.
“I had torn all the skin off my knuckles and everything,” he says.
Corey says he will never forget the look on Max’s face when Chad and Scott finally got him up to the wheelhouse.
“I can’t say it was a look of panic but it was more like he was in a frozen zombie-like state. I’ve seen guys panic and they’re all over the place, but Max wasn’t like that. He was frozen stiff and just kept mumbling that he wasn’t gonna make it. He kept saying he wasn’t gonna make it, over and over.”
Corey grabbed the microphone on the so-called ‘big set’ and issued a mayday, giving the vessel’s name, position, number of crew and said they were immediately abandoning ship. There was no response, so he then ran to the front of the wheelhouse and performed the same function on another radio set, hoping that at least one of the sets was still functioning, although all electronic wiring below the wheelhouse was now submerged.
Corey, Scott and Chad had successfully donned their survival suits, but Max was still standing in the wheelhouse with the same look of terror on his face, apparently unable to move a limb. The other three managed to get both Max’s legs and one arm into the suit before the water had risen all the way to the top level near the wheelhouse.
Time had run out.
“Boys, we got to get a life raft off,” Corey shouted but soon realized that both rafts were on the port side of the vessel and were totally submerged. But there were no options, the men had to leave the boat for fear of getting trapped in the wheelhouse while the boat was going all the way down.
“When Scottie and Chad opened the wheelhouse door, they were swept away in a matter of a couple of seconds. You have to remember that besides listing heavily on her side, we were looking at 20 or 21-foot seas as well,” Corey explains.
Knowing that there was no time left, Corey shouted at Max to get his arm into his suit. But Max was motionless and still staring off in space, so Corey did the only thing he could, he grabbed Max and the two stumbled out through the wheelhouse door into the stormy seas.
Corey was intent on saving Max and continued to try and push his friend’s arm in the suit but Max was rigid and unable to help himself, let alone help Corey. That’s when things went from bad to worse.
“I managed to swim both me and Max away from the boat a few feet but then I got tangled up in the shrimp bag and lines and rope that had come loose from the deck. It was an awful mess. I could hear Chad and Scott off in the distance, yelling out but I couldn’t see them in the waves at that time and the harder I tried to help Max, the more tangled up I got.”
Even though he was snarled in ropes, Corey valiantly attempted to get Max fully into his survival suit, but eventually had to give up because it was an impossible task.
“Waves were washing over us and every time I’d take a breath I was swallowing as much water as I was getting air,” Corey explains, still wondering how he didn’t drown within minutes of leaving the wheelhouse.
Recalling the various events of the approximately seven minutes from the time Chad woke him to the time they were in the ocean and what followed in the next while after escaping from the wheelhouse, is emotionally charged for Corey. Pausing from time to time to regain his composure, Corey says some details are as vivid as it happened 10 minutes ago while, on the other hand, he’s still not fully certain how some other things unfolded.
“I remember looking back at the boat — she was almost gone but the bow was sticking straight up. She was no longer listed out to port but I guess the wheelhouse had an air pocket and she stayed there with just her nose pointing straight up. Her name (Seafaring Legend) was on the bow and the only part above water was the g.e.n.d, that’s how far down she was.”
Join us next month for Part III of ‘You Can’t Fix It.’
