Rescue at the bearing sea

As the Emergency Towing System program expands across Alaska, a crewmember who participated in one of its first successful implementations looks back.

The Bering Sea is no mariner’s friend. Its waters are some of the remotest and stormiest in the world, and ships in peril here can find themselves hundreds of miles from the nearest port, with nowhere to turn for shelter.
Such incidents are so common here that in 2007, the Mayor of Unalaska called for the development of an Emergency Towing System (ETS) program, which would rely on the help of locally available tugboats. The ETS – which consists of a fiber towline, a messenger line to assist in deploying the towline, a lighted buoy, and chafing gear – has been so effective at helping to avert disaster that the program has expanded statewide with every passing year.
Daniel Arnesson has borne witness to the Bering Sea’s violence. Now Captain of Tor Viking II, he was the ship’s Chief Officer four years ago under the command of Captain Finn Jorgensen, and as such used the Emergency Towing System to help prevent the occurrence of what could have been another all-too-familiar tragedy. He recently helped us piece together the events surrounding the daring rescue.

DECEMBER 8, 2004 WAS THE DAY the Malaysian cargo vessel Selendang Ayu lost power in heavy weather and ran aground off Unalaska Island. The whole world had seen footage of the doomed ship, split in two pieces, of wildlife covered in oil, of a rescue helicopter floating in the ocean, brought down by a rogue wave and heard the news that six crewmembers had been lost in the crash. Six years later, the shadow of the wreck still hung heavy over Alaska. It was this memory that impelled the US Coast Guard to seek help from Tor Viking II on December 3, 2010, when a 738-foot bulk carrier named Golden Seas lost power in a storm and started to drift. A failed engine turbocharger, not reparable at sea, was reported to be the cause of the ship’s distress. Without the turbocharger, the ship’s engine could not generate enough power to hold the vessel in position, much less make headway in the rough weather. And with twenty crewmembers and nearly half a million gallons of fuel onboard, the consequences of a grounding would be catastrophic. But as the Coast Guard made clear to Captain Finn, it would take Tor Viking II twenty-four hours steaming full speed ahead in order to reach the disabled vessel, with no certainty that they would arrive in time to prevent disaster. There was nothing to do but try.

As Captain Finn met with the Coast Guard for a briefing, the rest of the crew worked to prepare the vessel for her journey. At 1600 hours, Tor Viking II set off using all the power she had. The north westerly wind was storm force now. The sea height, twelve meters. The vessel pitched and rolled to such an extent that one of the life rafts, designed to self inflate under water, inflated. A storage reel on the forecastle, protected behind the windlasses, broke. Some of the crew had to fight seasickness, though all onboard were well-seasoned sailors. Captain Daniel describes the journey in his typically understated style: “Food wise, not much was served.”

Having reached the golden seas at last, Tor Viking II worked to deploy the Emergency Towing System. This meant using a gun to shoot the messenger line 40 meters to the disabled ship, after which the messenger line was to be connected to the emergency towline. But because of the violent weather, Tor Viking II needed to position herself upwind of the Golden Seas, or the messenger line would never make it over. When asked what would have happened if Tor Viking II had lost power in this moment, Captain Daniel shudders and says, “I don’t want to think about the consequences.”

Once in position, the crew set out to shoot over the messenger line from the stern of Tor Viking II, as waves crashed and water rushed over the deck. It took three attempts before the line was secured and the crew could slowly pay out the emergency towline. This was done with great care, in an effort to maintain just enough slack so the Golden Seas crew could work safely, but not so much slack that the line would become caught on the anchor flukes. Minutes passed as Daniel and his ship mates waited, silently watching as the Golden Seas rose, ever higher in the waves – so high that the bottom of her hull was out of the water – and then crashed down again. At last, the signal came: the Golden Seas crew was clear and she was ready for her tow. A long twenty-four hours later, she was safely docked in Dutch Harbor.

This incident underscores the difference an exceptional crew can make in rescue situations. According to Captain Daniel, Tor Viking II was actually one of two AHTS vessels anchored in Dutch Harbor when the distress call came in. The Coast Guard chose Tor Viking II, not so much for the abilities of the vessel (though, with over 200 tons of bollard pull, it was certainly qualified) as for the abilities of the crew. The Coast Guard had worked with Tor Viking II several years earlier and had spent time onboard the ship. It was the crew’s professionalism and spirit the Coast Guard prized above all else.

And the Coast Guard’s trust in the Viking crew was well placed. Six months after the Golden Seas rescue, the crew was honored for their efforts with a meritorious public service award. The mission has been the subject of numerous articles and is even cited in the Unalaska Emergency Towing System Exercise Report as an example of an instance in which the ETS was successfully imple- mented to prevent a possible grounding. Captain Daniel is modest about the crew’s achievements, however. He sheep- ishly deflects any praise with a wave of his hand and says, “When you’re in those types of situations, you don’t think about it. It’s only afterwards, when you see the films and the articles, you think to yourself: what is this?”