The NOAA analyst informed the Coast Guard Marine Board of Inquiry on Thursday, May 7, that the sunken scallop boat Lady Mary’s emergency location device (EPIRB) was incorrectly registered by a NOAA contractor. It was told that due to the inaccuracy, the ship had emitted a signal, but did not identify its location, the name of the boat or a contact phone number for its owners to computers fed by satellite data when it went into the ocean after 5 a.m. on March 24.
Dan Karlson, senior program analyst for NOAA’s Search and Rescue Satellite Program, said that the EPIRB, which broadcasts a signal when a vessel is sinking, when registered by the vessel’s owner, by mail, had an incorrect identification number when submitted in November 2008.
It is told that the boat’s owner was required to write by hand the UIN on the form, which was done in error, off by one digit. An official work for NOAA handling paperwork for renewals for EPIRBs has copied the incorrect handwritten number instead of using the correct number from the sticker. As a result, when the Lady Mary’s EPIRB went into the ocean and transmitted a signal to a satellite, computers could not match it with any beacon in its database.
According to Stevenson Lee Weeks Jr. attorney for Smith and Smith and Roy Smith Sr. the Lady Mary’s EPIRB has three stickers on it and none of them bore the correct UIN number. The first sticker was for that EPIRG, the second sticker for a distress beacon that it replaced and the third sticker had the same incorrect number as the first sticker.
CMDR Kyle McAvoy asked Smith if he used the services of a marine engineer before modifying the boat. He said he did not, noting the Lady Mary was not big enough to require a stability test. Smith said the boat handled much better after being modified. The cause of the sinking has not been determined. After watching a video of the Lady Mary sitting upright on the ocean bottom, Smith said he questions why the dredge was sitting loose on the deck with the cable not connected.
