Stacking the Survival Odds
by Brenda Tredwell

Two Burmese fishermen survived the sinking of their fishing boat in a cooler from the vessel. Adrift for 24 days, the Austrailian Coast Guard picked them up. Random luck leaves a lot to be desired in the face of disaster at sea.

A fire aboard JANILEEN II during an offshore fishing trip in the mid-1980s convinced owner Kris Boehmer, “There’s no question - I attribute the fact we survived to (safety & survival) training, despite some of the mistakes I made.”

Boehmer, who now works for Ocean Marine Insurance Agency, grew up on Monhegan Island. After leaving Maine to fish in Rhode Island, Kris worked hard to buy a 74 ft. wooden boat, JANILEEN II, that he fished out of Point Judith.

An electrical fire broke out in the engine room bulkhead of the 74 ft. wooden boat. Boehmer and crew thought they’d extinguished the blaze, but the fire re-flashed, burning through steering wires and the bulkhead. Soon after that, said Boehmer. “The entire house was on fire.”

“So It went from a small fire to uncontrollable,” said Boehmer, who estimates he and the crew had five minutes to save themselves. “The raft burned, but we got the EPIRB and survival suits.”

“We’d done firefighting, man overboard drills,“ added Kris. While his crew wasn’t enthusiastic, “It was obvious, once the s*** hit the fan, that taking time (to run drills) was worth it.”

Things happened fast, but safety drills the crew had practiced begrudgingly made it easier to know when to draw the line, stop battling an out-of-control fire, and abandon ship in survival suits.

The fatality rate for commercial fishing is 36 times greater than any other occupation, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2007 the all-worker fatality rate (per 100,000 workers) for fishing was 27.3 (In contrast, the 2007 Mining Industry fatality rate was 24.8)

Boehmer’s experience evolved into another career--promoting fishing vessel safety. In October of 1989, Commercial Fisheries News printed Boehmer’s account of the fire which caused the loss of JANILEEN II. Excerpts from that CFN article appeared in a book published by National Academies Press – FISHING VESSEL SAFETY: Blueprint for a National Program (1991) The project was overseen by the National Research Council’s US Marine Board Committee on F/V Safety.

Boehmer has been a member of the Commercial Fishing Safety Council of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) since its establishment in 2004.

“After mandated (safety and survival) training for the fishing industry began, there were major drops in claims – from boat losses to fatalities," said Boehmer. "An added benefit to training is, it makes crew work more cognitively together, as a team.”

“The instinct to save the boat first has cost many lives.” confirmed Mary McMillan of McMillan Offshore Survival Train-ing (M.O.S.T.), a Belfast-based training school offering courses designed for fishermen.

“In emergency situations, assembling rafts and survival suits may happen after events are dangerously out of control, and panic and fatigue take over,” she added.

While taking such a course does not guarantee survival, or, as McMillan put it “Sprinkle you with survival dust,” putting the effort in could increase a fisherman's ability to function under duress and make life-saving decisions.

M.O.S.T. is currently offering a USCG approved certification course called Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor Training through Sumner High School Adult Education.