Suddenly Submerged: The Loss of FV Emmy Rose

Supporters of this channel are a major part of how these full length features can be produced sponsor-free. www.patreon.com/BrickImmortar VANISHING ANGLE - The Maritime Series: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiAs3qpTmQD2osFLd90EbL-… FRACTURE CRITICAL - The Bridge Collapse Series: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiAs3qpTmQD2GQ6Gxu51OUv…

I’m from Gloucester Ma and was a commercial fisherman for a lot of years. I fished with the Capt Bobby many times and grew up playing youth hockey with Mike Porper. We also fished together and were good friends. Didn’t know Ethan or Jeff but he was a legend on the Maine docks. Both Bobby and Mike were competent fisherman & mariners and good guys overall. I have my opinions on what may have happened but in the end it doesn’t matter. They’re gone. Mike’s daughter was 2 at the time of him not coming home and she asks about him all the time. It’s hard for me to believe she capsized if she’s upright 800’ below on the bottom with all her gear onboard where it’s supposed to be. If she rolled over, there would be a debris field all around the boat of gear. Whatever it was, it was quick, catastrophic, over in seconds and unrecoverable. It’s not inconceivable for a problem to be occurring at night, in a dark compartment and have all hands down below trying to work the problem with the boat on auto pilot which means no one would be at the wheel to make a distress call if things went south and got bad. If they were in the Lazarette (the aft most compartment with steering) or the engine room and she rolled or rode a following sea underwater and drove herself under, if they were all down below they had 0 chance of getting back up to the wheelhouse in time to call let alone to get inside and out survival suits on. It was November at night on the North Atlantic. It was COLD. Almost impossible. I pray they never saw it coming and just went to sleep. RIP Emmy Rose Crew. Lost at Sea 2020 #legendsneverdie #mikey#bobby#ethan#jeff Great video, I’ve been a subscriber for a while and when I saw this pop up I was intrigued. Thanks for telling their story.

A fishing vessel sunk very, very suddenly in British waters some years ago. Later it was determined that they had accidentally netted a military submarine. Nobody on the sub had noticed it, but they had simply dragged the fishing boat under water within seconds before the net gave way. This came to my mind because back then, it was also not understood why there were no mayday messages and no really bad weather, too.

I’m a commercial Lobsterman. I waved to the Emmy Rose as They left Portland harbor. I believe I may have in the last person to see those onboard alive.

Simply eerie to have the vessel sitting upright on the bottom looking like it's underway. Agree with the marine engineer, something happened rapidly and suddenly. Stability testing and calculations have had issues for years in the Alaska fishing fleet which led to the stability testing recommendations after the Alaska Ranger sinking in 2008. Should be a requirement industry wide. Lack of accurate stability information has cost 100s of lives over the years.

You have the voice, the articulate storytelling skills, and most elusive, the quiet authority that gives the stories you tell a compelling nature.

I think the interview with the former deckhand, the Captain of the Allagash, is the most telling and shocking evidence. The observer paints the other half of the picture. Drug use, complacency and the failure to manage fuel correctly are the most likely causes of this tragedy. I certainly don't mean to speak ill of the dead but we have to call it what it is to hopefully prevent a sinking like this in the future. Also, always pure class having no commentary while the victim's names are on screen. Regardless of how many times you've done this I continue to be impressed by the respect shown to those that died. Another incredibly detailed and fascinating video!👍

I don’t know anything about boats or commercial fishing or this accident, but I was riveted during this entire video. I learned a lot. Extremely well done. Thank you.

I’m a captain with considerable experience at sea. I have watched this video and your video on the Scandies Rose tonight, both sinkings I am very familiar with. The quality of your videos is exception and there is a lot mariners can learn from watching them. I firmly believe as captain that all mariners should make it a point to learn about these kinds of incidents so they can take what they learn and use it to keep this kind of thing from happening again. As we often say, protocols are usually written in blood. Meaning often it takes a tragedy or death to learn enough to adjust the way we do things and as terrible as it may be, for the people that passed in their families, if learning from what happened to them can prevent future tragedies their deaths are not in vain.

I've been a Gloucester fisherman for over 50 years. Have been deckhand, cook engineer, fish hold man and have captained many boats. After reading this great article about the history of this vessel my take on it is a problem in the lazarette with either the stuffing box, where the main shaft goes through the hull to the propeller, loosened up or something happened to cause it to have water come in, or a rudder post was a problem. Hardley anyone goes down the lazarette and it's the most vulnerable part of a steel boat in my opinion. Reading about problems when it was named Sasha leads me to believe they had shaft issues, maybe out of line or something that caused the boat to have problems before. One of my biggest fears over the years was someone at the wheel falling asleep and surprised there aren't a lot more mishaps then recorded. God bless the crew and their families.

I have personally started to transfer fuel, among many other constant duties, and fell asleep after yet another 20-hr day in the Bering. Cook shook me awake "Jack!! The boat is lisping!" (sic). I immediately remembered and reversed the transfer until we stabilized but it was a distinct slant-

"Needed a good paint job, and that was it". Paint doesn't make the corrosion stop. New steel added to the stern, means dissimilar metals next to, or in contact with each other. Add some daily sea water immersion, acids and enzymes from the decomposing marine life entrails dripping into that area.. Then slap a few new coats of paint over it. Now all that corrosion is just impossible to monitor.

I’m from New England and worked on a few fishing boats in my life and I learned a lifetime of information from my captain. That to this day is still ingrained into my brain cause he was constantly all over me about it. When I was young and a rookie still certain things I thought he was being overly obsessive about safety which is fine but he had certain things he was really paranoid about. And drove me nuts in the beginning but after a very very rough day and having a following sea all the way home I realized how important everything that he would nit pick me about. I can still hear it now “BALANCE THE BOAT!” Until I had many years under my belt did I realize how quickly and without warning we could all be in the cold water. After finally making it home which is usually a 3 hour run, it took us 8 hours , there was no atheists on the boat that day. And randomly he would have me open the aft hatch so see if there was water in it. He didn’t ever trust the alarms. Another was the shaft log we called it. You referred to it as shaft seal. He was 80 so he had different names for everything. Getting in a dark hole with a flashlight to make sure it’s not pouring in water. Anyway this brought back memories. Also. Worked on a bottom fishing gill net boat in January for monkfish couldn’t resist the money. Worst week of my life. The bycatch kill was just unbelievable and indiscriminate and if some of the mile long gill nets were soaking too long is was just bones and rotten things that resembled fish consistency of toothpaste. So I’m wrestling a 5 foot blue shark out of the net cause he’s tangled and it turns to toothpaste right in my hands. Worst thing ever. Dolphins dead in net. Didn’t see any sea turtles but he was working the rail and might have got rid of them before it got to me. Giant lobsters were caught in the net. I’m talking giant. From a few 100 ft 30-40 miles offshore. Like aquarium display size. Anyway I always thought I’m in good hands if the captain is always yelling at me to balance the boat. He was one of the boats that came to the aid of the f/v pelican when the charter boat was overloaded and was cold and spray was comin over the rail in October/November so all went to other side to avoid the spray and took a wave just right and the boat capsized something like 30+/- people were killed and most of the current rules were instituted after that tragedy. I had to read the book “the pelican” to understand why I must balance the boat the capt ordered me to do. Another thing I was in a mandatory random drug testing program or I couldn’t work on the boat. I had to have my drug card they called it. If coast guard ever stopped us and that would be on the list of requirements. Pain in the ass. Anyway great video rip Emmy rose.

i used to be a groundfish observer in the northeast and I regularly worked on converted shrimp boats with rigging similar to the Rose. what you said about how the fishermen view that as the standard configuration is very true and i had no idea it reduces stability. also drug use is very common on the boats, not just weed, but heroin and crack as well. this is an excellently researched doc, i love all your work. the loss of the rose was profound in the community and many fishermen would often talk about it. Also, if anyone has any questions about observing, please ask. lots of pros and cons and a lot of info i wish i knew before hand.

I find these ship incidents quite fascinating. I was in the U.S. Navy for 13 years, plus quite a bit of time in the Bering Sea on a 32’ boat. As well as 16 - 25’ boats in open water off Washington state and California as well as Puget sound. The roughest seas I’ve been in were when I was stationed on MSO-437, taking blue water over the pilot house. They are 172’ long, 32’ wide with a 10’ draft and 620 tons. Made of wood. Of course the Navy doesn’t mess around, there’s a roving sounding and security watch 24/7, 365, and when doing any type of liquid transfer there’s constant tank soundings being taken. Also water tight integrity is strictly enforced. I suppose that’s why we were more afraid of fire than flooding. Of course we trained almost every day on emergency situations. RIP to the souls lost at sea.

As a historian, your care for human life while also telling their stories in a way that keeps people invested is so rare. I love that you frequently criticize the ways that laborers are so often put in harms way by the greed and pride of leadership. On top of all that, your voice is so lovely!

Despite the tragic nature of the stories, I'm always fascinated by the mysteries and explanations - especially the technical details and insights into these worlds - engineering, shipping, architecture, construction etc. Thank you.

I'm a HF radio listener and amateur radio operator..I often listen to New England fishing fleets' radio chatter. These guys are talking to each other on the radio basically nonstop. Vessels generally are equipped with several types of communications equipment. The standard VHF marine radio offers communications range of 10-25 miles from ship to ship, depending heavily on the height of the antennas themselves. VHF marine radios are required in all of these types of vessels and most will have three, four or five VHF radios alone. For vessels that travel on the high seas, long-range communications capability is also required per US and international law. This may be a HF SSB (single side band) radio (often simply called the "SSB radio"), a satcom transceiver, a satellite phone system, a voice/data satellite terminal for access to email/Internet - or, as is usually the case, all of the above. HF radio provides very long range communications capability and does not require a subscription type service like satcom equipment does. There are hundreds of frequencies on the HF radio spectrum that are specifically allocated to marine use worldwide. New England fishing fleets use many of these official marine frequencies for ship to ship chatter and also use "out of band" frequencies that are NOT allocated for marine use (the New England fisheries like to hang out on frequencies allocated to military radio, broadcasting and other services). The reason behind this is the company (shore based radio) is likely listening to the official marine frequencies, so using an out of band frequency means the conversations are often much more informal. The point made about these guys being in almost constant close voice contact with each other is very valid. They use HF radio with range of thousands of miles to talk to other vessels that are at the most a few hundred miles away. I've heard them on 6090 kHz, 6095 kHz, 6212 kHz (which is a legal legit marine frequency), 6953 kHz, 6959 kHz, 6969 kHz, 6979 kHz and several others, usually in the 6 MHz band but outside the 6200 kHz - 6525 kHz 6 MHz HF marine frequency allocation. The 6525 kHz - 6765 kHz band is used for long-range aeronautical (aircraft) radio communications, and aircraft frequencies are avoided by anybody with half a brain. 6765 kHz to 7000 kHz is a misc. users allocation (fixed/mobile, which means military users, other users that aren't marine, aircraft, amateur [ham] radio operators are found here - the 6765 to 7000 kHz spectrum is very popular with South American fishing fleets as well). Below 6200 kHz, the allocation is for shortwave broadcasting, down to 5800 kHz or so. With the decline of shortwave radio broadcasting, the broadcasting allocations are also very popular with HF radio users who are looking to "hide" (usually from their company's shore based radio station) on a "private channel" hence the use of 6090 kHz in addition to the frequencies in the 6765 to 7000 kHz range. That aside - These guys (fishing fleets, New England, Gulf Coast, Latin American, Caribbean, everywhere...) are talking on the radio basically nonstop, to say nothing about their use of satphones, push-to-talk satcom based systems and data/satellite based email/Internet communications. These vessels still have the old school HF-SSB radios because they work. They work without any outside infrastructure. The EPIRB is a system of last resort. Modern SSB marine radios have what is called "DSC" capability (digital radio distress transmission without actually having to make a voice radio "mayday" call) and that means there's a red DISTRESS button on the radio control panel and pressing it automatically transmits your vessel's unique ID, GPS location and nature of distress via HF radio to the US Coast Guard (this is part of the GMDSS system, if the vessel is equipped with satcom capability, the same information would be transmitted via satellite and HF radio to the appropriate authorities). Redundancy is important. This is why these vessels have so much communications gear. A voice "mayday" call would still be done (if time allowed for it) but the push-the-button capability takes only a moment. If no GMDSS (DSC) distress call was received either...that means they had no time or something else happened. Thank you for this video. I look forward to these

I'm from Maine and appreciate you highlighting this case. We have lost alot of sailors over the years. I remember this in the papers and feel for the families and friends of those lost.

I've fished off the wharfs right next to the Emmy Rose many times before... Yet I didn't even know it had sank. That really bums me out, I've probably even talked to some of them in passing conversation. I would pick the nets when they would leave them up for cleaning looking for cool bones and shells and other neat and stinky stuff. I don't watch TV, but I'm really surprised I didn't hear about this.