The search team of US Coats Guard has combed the area with boat and helicopter for seven hours at stretch for the two missing men but in vain. According to the Coast Guard the vessel, a 42-foot Network, went over at 7:42 a.m. as it attempted to traverse a bar to exit Tillamook Bay. The crab boat was hit by a wave estimated to be about 13 feet tall by the skipper, Darrin Mobley, who was able to swim to shore.
It is informed that the bar is a narrow opening between two jetties where vessels can be buffeted by strong tides and, often, a line of breakers. The two missing crewmen are George Shaw, 55, of Sequim; and Timothy Leake, 44, of Tillamook. Shaw’s wife, Dorothy, said her husband had been fishing for many years off Alaska and the Northwest coasts, as well as logging.
A Coast Guard official initially told that Mobley was wearing a life jacket and the other two crew members were not. But later in the day, a Coast Guard statement said none of the crew was wearing a life jacket. After the incident a Coast Guard rescue vessel was able to reach the scene shortly after the accident. At the time the Network overturned, a small-craft advisory was in effect, but the bar was open to passage by commercial fishing boats.
It is told that the Tillamook bar is one of the most treacherous, and it has been the scene of numerous accidents including the February 2006 capsizing of the Catherine M, which took the lives of three commercial crabbers. In an effort to reduce the number of accidents, the Coast Guard has conducted voluntary dockside safety inspections of Dungeness crab boats in advance of the season opening.
