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Fellow deckhands, personal diary offer details of Gainey's final hours PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 28 November 2007 19:50
HALIFAX - As a North Atlantic gale howled through the night, deckhand Evan Rickett slipped into the Picton Castle's hold, his numb hands shaking as he prayed that none of his shipmates would be struck by waves crashing over the tall ship's decks.

The deckhand's prayer was in vain.

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Ninety minutes later, Laura Gainey was gone, swept over the side at the height of the storm.

Almost a year after the 25-year-old daughter of hockey legend Bob Gainey disappeared beneath the dark swells, a more complete picture is finally emerging about the events that led to the young woman's tragic death at sea.

Rickett, a 27-year-old from Chicago, is one of two crew members who recently came forward to describe Gainey's final hours in detail to The Canadian Press.

Their first-hand accounts, combined with previously unreleased testimony and a telling excerpt from Gainey's personal diary, have shed new light on what happened that terrible night.

The new information also raises questions about safety procedures aboard the Picton Castle.'It was a dangerous situation to be in, and there were a number of safety precautions that could have been taken and that should have been taken,'Rickett said in an interview.

The crew members' views are also in sharp contrast with the findings of a marine board of inquiry in the Cook Islands - the South Pacific country where the Nova-Scotia-based barque is registered - which concluded Gainey was simply the 'unlucky victim'of the risks she took on the high seas.

On the day before Gainey vanished - Dec. 7, 2006 - Rickett videotaped the storm as it worsened, the young sailor's commentary obscured at times by roaring winds gusting to 81 kilometres per hour.

As the steel-hulled ship pitched and rolled in seven-metre seas almost 800 kilometres southeast of Cape Cod, waves lashed the decks and seasick trainees were sent below.

The following day, with the storm still battering the 45-metre ship, Gainey took a break at 4 p.m. to write in her diary.

By her own account, she had slept only two hours during the previous 20-hour stretch as the three-masted ship was tossed about.

'Very rough out, I've been up a lot, 6 p.m. (Dec. 7) to 4 a.m., then 6 a.m. to now 3 p.m. or 4'ish (Dec. 8),'she wrote in the journal, which her father now has. 'People are sick, scared, falling, etc.'

It would be her final entry.

The ship's second engineer, Andrea Deyling, confirmed in a written statement given to an inquiry done by retired U.S. navy officer Andy Scheer that on the day Gainey was swept off the ship, she had been working hard, lashing down sea chests at 2 a.m., attending to water pumps, fixing an overflowing shower.

At one point, Gainey told her: 'This is the kind of weather where we should be in some safe harbour.'

Scheer, a marine safety consultant living in Florida, was hired by the Cook Islands to investigate the incident before it appointed the marine board of inquiry.Ryan Vogt, a 22-year-old fellow deckhand from Toronto, recalled how Gainey cooked until 6 p.m., 'and when she wasn't cooking, she was securing the boat as well.'

By 8 p.m., Gainey was expected to relieve Rickett and Vogt at the ship's wheel, but she told them she didn't feel confident taking the helm in rough weather.

The ship's second mate, Emma Millet, said she had to check with the captain.

According to Vogt, when Millet returned she told Gainey, 'OK, fine, you can go to bed, but you have to do ship checks,'which meant she would have to wake up every hour to ensure nothing had shaken loose during the storm.

Only a short time later, Rickett said he was on the port side of the ship, trying to secure fuel cans with the captain and the ship's bosun, when water rushed onto the rear deck.

As the water washed through, the three men were swept off their feet and slammed into the bulwark.

'It was pretty hairy,'said Rickett. 'A lot of water was coming up to my waist and it was pretty frightening.'

The captain, Michael Vogelsgesang, confirmed he was knocked down, but he later insisted in an interview that the water was only about 'a foot deep,'and may have flowed into the area from other parts of the vessel.

Vogt also said, in a written account submitted to Scheer's inquiry, that he and the captain were knocked down by another wave that cleared the rear deck before Laura was washed off the boat.

In his submission to Scheer, he wrote that he was 'asked to omit certain details'by Vogelsgesang, including the account of the wave that hit them.

In an e-mail on Wednesday, Vogelsgesang denies asking anyone to leave anything out of their statements.

'I have no reason to ask the crew to omit anything from their statements, and I made clear that they can write what they want,'he said. 'What I did ask everybody is to stay to the facts.'

Vogt told Scheer the wave that knocked him down flooded a breezeway on the Picton Castle.

'The wave came on board and flooded the area, knocking the captain off his feet and down the breezeway. ... I caught him before he was washed out to sea and got him to his feet.'

According to both Rickett and Vogt, even after these incidents it wasn't mandatory to don life-jackets or harnesses in that area.

Later that night, when Rickett returned to the ship's sleeping area, he saw Gainey changing out of her foul-weather gear, and they spoke briefly.

'Her specific concerns were about how to carry out her boat checks because she had two imperatives, one was to do boat checks and the other was to get as much sleep as possible,'he said in an interview.

'She was unclear on whether she should wear her foulies (foul weather gear) in her bunk, and try and sleep in those, or should she try to change in and out of her outdoor clothes.'

That's when Rickett stepped into the hold and prayed the waves would spare those on deck.

'It was my greatest fear,'he said, recalling he was soaked and so unsettled he could barely collect his thoughts.At 10 p.m., the captain said he saw Gainey on deck again and ordered her to go below.'I was surprised she was still on deck,'Vogelsgesang said in an interview from Israel. 'I ordered her to go to bed right away.'

However, 45 minutes later, Vogt spotted Gainey walking the deck. She told him she was still doing her checks.'I said, 'Oh, just be careful,' and I walked forward and into the galley. Thirty seconds later, I heard, 'Man overboard!''

According to crew accounts, the ship rolled heavily to port, and an unusually large wave poured over the side, swamping the rear deck.

The deckhand at the helm looked astern and saw 'a body and face in the water, still screaming.'

In his written statement to Scheer, Vogt said he heard voices on four occasions in the hours that followed, and each time he wrote down the latitude and longtitude.

The search continued for another 62 hours, but it turned up no trace of Gainey.

Vogelsgesang later said he couldn't understand why Gainey would continue doing ship checks after she was told to get some sleep.

'She'd asked for the rest and she got it.'

He said it remains unclear how long she went without rest during the storm, and he stressed it is difficult to sleep in rough weather and crew often volunteer to work during their off hours.

'We did not make people tie onto their bed when they have their time off. What they do then is absolutely up to them. ... They can give a hand if they wish to.'

As well, he rejected the suggestion that crew members should have been wearing life-jackets.

'If you have this kind of life-jacket it would interfere with was required at this point because people needed to do some work.'

Vogelsgesang said he had explained to crew that harnesses could be used, telling them, 'This is a kind of a tool which is necessary, and probably very useful, when in heavy weather.'

In light of the accident, he said: 'There are always improvements possible,'including installing a line on the rear deck for tethered harnesses.Rickett said wearing a life-jacket should be mandatory in rough weather.

'We didn't have a procedure for wearing life-jackets,'he said. 'I do believe if that standing order had been in place, it would have increased Laura's chances of surviving.'Vogt went further, suggesting tethered harnesses should have been required, the professional crew should have been better qualified, working hours should have been shorter, and staff better qualified.

'There should have been more crew, maybe then we wouldn't have been as tired, and we wouldn't have made our little mistakes,'he said, emphasizing that the deckhands had to cover the shift of an absent cook.

Also, Vogt suggested that Gainey, despite her hard-as-nails work ethic, probably wasn't qualified for what she was doing.

Prior to the voyage, she had been promoted to deckhand, which meant she was part of the professional crew, responsible for five or six trainees.

Though Gainey had three months of experience as a Picton Castle trainee, she lacked the marine emergency training Vogt had taken in Canada.

'It wasn't one person who caused this. ... It was a combination of things,'said Vogt.

'People just don't go to sea and die. ... Somebody needs to look at this and say, 'What are the factors as to why she went overboard and to tell the Cook Islands that they have to change their laws based on that.''

The report filed by the board of inquiry - considered by the Cook Islands as the final word on the case - concluded Laura's fatigue couldn't be proven as a factor in the accident; the crew worked 'regular'shifts; staffing levels weren't an issue, and the crew was 'well trained'in man-overboard procedures.

The final report, dated July 13, offers no list of firm recommendations for changes to improve safety. A slightly revised version issued in August recommended harnesses be used.

A chronology of events relating to loss at sea of Laura Gainey, daughter of hockey legend Bob Gainey.

Dec. 5, 2006 - Tall ship Picton Castle, a sail training vessel based in Lunenburg, N.S., sets sail from its home port with 28 professional crew and trainees on board.

Dec. 8 - Sailing through a North Atlantic gale about 700 kilometres southeast of Halifax, the 45-metre ship is hit by a large wave at 10:45 p.m. local time that swamps the rear deck and pulls deckhand Laura Gainey into the water.

Dec. 13 - Search for Gainey is called off. Picton Castle sails to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

Dec. 24 - Gainey's father, Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey, boards the three-masted ship with Andy Scheer, a former U.S. navy captain hired to conduct a probe by the Cook Islands, the South Pacific nation where the Picton Castle is registered.

January 2007 - Scheer completes his report and submits it to Maritime Cook Islands Ltd., administrator of the country's ships registry.

February 16 - Scheer makes some revisions and submits final draft.

March 14 - Cook Islands calls for full marine board inquiry to investigate Laura Gainey's death.

May 2 - Bob Gainey and his three surviving children announce creation of a foundation that hopes to raise $2 million to support education, the arts and the environment.

July 1 - Aukino Tairea, secretary of transport on the Cook Islands, says the marine board's inquiry has been delayed because accounts from crew members do not mesh with Scheer's findings.

July 9 - Picton Castle returns to Lunenburg.

July 13 - Marine board of inquiry publishes its final report. It offers no list of firm recommendations for changes to improve safety. A slightly revised version issued in August recommended harnesses be used.

Aug. 29 - Transportation Safety Board of Canada announces it will review findings of the marine board.

Sept. 25 - Canadian investigators interview Daniel Moreland, the ship's senior captain, and crew members.

Oct. 15 - Canadian board sends letter to investigators in the Cook Islands to raise certain safety issues, including an assertion that full man overboard drills were not completed, and Laura Gainey was likely overtired during her final shift due to long hours of work.

Nov. 18 - Canadian safety board announces it will conduct its own full inquiry into Laura Gainey's death.

The Canadian Press
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