Alaska Ranger's safety said to be improved

Fishing Company of Alaska had made progress in bringing the Alaska Ranger into compliance with a new set of Coast Guard safety standards, according to testimony Thursday by a Coast Guard inspector.

The vessel's lifesaving equipment was in full compliance, said Charlie Medlicott, an Unalaska-based Coast Guard inspector who did a safety exam in January — about two months before the March 23 sinking that claimed the lives of five of the 47 crew members.

His testimony was relayed by Petty Officer Sara Francis who attended the hearing in Unalaska, Alaska.

The Alaska Ranger was operated by Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska, which last fall took the vessel to dry dock in Japan.

There, Medlicott said, marine inspectors looked at ballast tanks, the life rafts, the stability book, firefighting equipment, watertight doors, factory high-water alarms and other aspects of the vessel's safety, according to Francis.

But the Alaska Ranger — like most of the more than 60 vessels in the new safety program — hadn't met full compliance with the new safety standards that the Coast Guard initially hoped would be met by January of this year.

Medlicott testified in the seventh day of a Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation that is examining the circumstances surrounding the sinking.

Much of the testimony in Unalaska has come from survivors, but on Thursday board members turned their attention to Coast Guard efforts to improve the safety of the "head-and-gut" vessels that catch and process bottom-dwelling fish.

The program was launched in 2006, but Medlicott said he knows of only three vessels that made the January deadline.

Medlicott said the program also has been hampered by reduced cooperation between Anchorage and Seattle-based Coast Guard safety offices, according to Unalaska radio station KIAL, which has reporter Charles Homan covering the hearings.

Medlicott told investigators that Fishing Company of Alaska had been very cooperative, according to Francis.

He recalled how he once condemned 17 survival suits aboard one of the company's vessels and then was verbally abused by a ship's officer. He said that after he mentioned the incident to a company official, that officer was quickly fired, according to KIAL.

The Unalaska hearings ended Thursday. The board plans additional hearings in Anchorage and Seattle.