The information revealed that the captain of the ship had been nervous about the amount of cargo the Northern Belle was carrying when it left Seattle earlier this month. Robert Jack said that the 75-foot vessel was so low in the water that Captain Robert Royer decided to take a slower route north to Alaska, avoiding the roughest water by staying close to shore.
According to Jack he was scared of that load. He told that Royer was suffered a head injury while leaving the boat on Tuesday as it turned on its side on the Gulf of Alaska 50 miles south of Montague Island. He also informed that Royer’s decision to make a last-second mayday call before their boat sank likely saved the lives of his crew, but may have cost him his.
Jack also said that there is only two ways we could have got saved: the EPIRB or the mayday call, and our captain made it in there and sacrificed himself. The cause of the sinking has not been determined, said Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis, who documented the rescue from a C-130 rescue airplane. Jack speculated the cause was linked to overloading.
A Coast Guard C-130 airplane from Kodiak reached the scene a little more than an hour after the mayday call. The crew dropped rafts, and Knivila was able to climb in.
The crew members were hoisted into a rescue basket from a helicopter that arrived 45 minutes later. The three survivors suffered hypothermia.
