A fishing boat with one person believed to be aboard remains lost in Southeast Alaska waters near Ketchikan, a week after it was last heard from.
The Feb. 20 final radio call from the 43-foot commercial geoduck clam dive boat Canis Majoris took place just north of Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island. The U.S. Coast Guard picked up an emergency transmission from the vessel at about 6:30 p.m. that evening.
Coast Guard Petty Officer John Hightower said Guardsmen responded aboard the cutter John McCormick, a 45-foot fast response boat dispatched from Ketchikan and a Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Sitka. According to Hightower, crews sought the Canis Majoris for about 25 hours before suspending the search.
“They have a large number of factors that they take into account to determine the survivability of the person that’s being searched for,” Hightower said. “So they use all those factors to determine the optimal survivability of the missing person and how long it would be reasonable to search for them before shifting into a recovery position.”
Hightower said the Coast Guard has no word that anyone else was aboard the boat when it disappeared.
“It’s estimated that it was only the owner/operator,” he said. “Next of kin were contacted, and all the possible or suggested crew members and deckhands for the vessel were all contacted and they were confirmed to not be on the vessel.”
Canis Majoris is registered in the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission database to a Ketchikan man named David Klein. Alaska State Troopers listed Klein as a missing person on Saturday.
Hightower said when watchstanders received the distress signal they alerted the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Hubbard, which was nearby in Clarence Strait en route to Juneau.
AMHS spokesman Sam Dapcevich told the Ketchikan Daily News that the Hubbard didn’t have passengers aboard at the time. She was headed to Juneau to resume service after an overhaul at Ketchikan’s Vigor shipyard. Dapcevich told the paper that the ferry sent crew on a speedboat to the site of the distress call. They found a life raft and floating debris but no survivors. The weather got worse and the ferry crew had to return to safety.
The Coast Guard asks anyone with information on Klein or the Canis Majoris to contact Ketchikan troopers at 907-225-5118, or the Coast Guard Southeast Alaska Command Center at 907-463-2980.