A broken distress call as waves swamped their boat near Seward, then silence

U.S. Coast Guard officials say they tracked an aluminum boat carrying four people in rough seas miles from Seward for hours before what started as a daylong fishing trip turned into a disaster last week.

The 22-foot Hewescraft was taking on water in Aialik Bay, where the group spent the night in a sheltered cove after dangerous conditions and foul weather prevented them from getting home the day before. Mariners in the area described 10- or 12-foot waves and winds gusting to 30 mph.

The Coast Guard was checking in with the boat every half-hour for five hours with no reports of trouble, a spokesman said this week.

But then, just before 7:45 a.m. last Wednesday, came the broken radio transmission with “need help” as the only words watchstanders could make out, according to Lt. Cmdr. Mike Salerno, spokesman for the 17th Coast Guard District.

A Coast Guard helicopter that launched from Kodiak arrived just over two hours later, Salerno said.

By then, the boat had capsized near the mouth of Aialik Bay, leaving one man dead and three others missing.

The body of Soldotna resident Hayden Green, 29, was recovered by a tour boat about three hours after the distress call went out, authorities have said. The helicopter crew spotted the vessel and asked the Major Marine Tours catamaran carrying 80 passengers to bring Green’s body to shore before diverting to Seward to refuel, officials said.

Troopers identified the three missing as Joshua Green, 60, of Seward; his son Caleb Green, 29, of Anchorage; and Melanie Porter, 60, of Seward. Hayden Green was Josh Green’s nephew.

Concerns surface about Coast Guard future

Local officials say the incident reflects the potential for trouble in a community that attracts scores of visitors to its waters every summer, especially given questions surrounding the future of the Cutter Mustang, the Coast Guard vessel home-ported in the city since 1986.

Bob Barnwell, a Seward City Council member and experienced mariner, said that conversations with officials in Washington, D.C., have indicated Seward could go without a home-ported vessel for several years.

“They have no idea what boating in Gulf of Alaska is like,” he said. “I just think having a boat in proximity to this area is fundamentally important. They said the helicopter out of Kodiak is available.”

The 110-foot patrol vessel responds to rescues as well as fuel spills and other calls.

Asked why the Mustang didn’t respond to last week’s incident, Salerno said Coast Guard patrol boats rotate between scheduled operational periods, maintenance periods, and “ready” status. In this case, the Cutter Naushon home-ported in Homer was the “ready” cutter and was sent to the search area, he said.

The Coast Guard plans to decommission the Mustang and replace it, officials said, though they could not provide a timeline.

Salerno said this week that he has no specifics on decommissioning plans. The agency is modernizing and replacing the aging patrol boats with 154-foot fast cutters, he said.

Local officials say they’ve heard different updates from Coast Guard and other federal officials.

Losing a local Coast Guard vessel, even for a short amount of time, is concerning, said Kat Sorensen, Seward’s city manager. Without a cutter physically based in Seward, residents and visitors would need to always rely on helicopters and vessels based in other coastal communities like Kodiak or Homer.

“I definitely think it is a concern for a community that spends so much time on the water and has so many people from all across the world coming up to spend time on the water,” Sorensen said. “We are, as a community, grateful and happy with the Coast Guard presence we have in Seward.”

Check-ins every 30 minutes before final call

Josh Green’s brother this week said he and his brother shared the 22-foot Ocean Pro that went down at the mouth of Aialik Bay.

The Green family moved to Alaska in 1974. Josh Green and his siblings graduated from Anchorage’s East High School. Green retired as an Anchorage School District administrator but was teaching special education students in Seward, his brother Tim said.

Former wrestlers at Bartlett High School described Josh Green as a beloved coach who reached hundreds of young people. A GoFundMe established to help Green’s widow had raised more than $11,000 by Thursday.

The group was probably fishing for halibut and rockfish, maybe trolling for feeder kings, Tim Green said this week. His brother had just met Porter through a mutual landlord, he said: “Like he did with many people, even strangers, he invited her fishing.”

Coast Guard officials say they were alerted to a potential problem by a family member. Hayden Green’s fiance realized the boat was overdue and reached out to his father, who called the Coast Guard, according to Tim Green.

The Coast Guard “immediately began trying to locate the vessel,” Salerno wrote in an email this week. They made radio contact just after 2 a.m. Wednesday “and confirmed the vessel and four passengers were not in distress and not requesting any assistance. At this time the Coast Guard maintained radio contact with the vessel every 30 minutes while they awaited favorable weather to transit back to Seward.”

The last clear message the Coast Guard received from the boat came at 7:10 a.m. Wednesday, Salerno said: There had been no changes and the boat was safely anchored.

Tim Green said that’s when his brother told them that he had motored out to test the conditions but it was still rough. Then he missed the next radio check-in.

The distress call came at 7:43 a.m., according to the Coast Guard.

Another mariner in the area last week told Tim Green he saw more logs than he’s ever seen. Green said it’s possible the boat hit a log that sheared off the propeller, cutting the power and leaving the boat at the mercy of the waves.

He said he’s spent 40 years going in and out of Seward to hunt and fish and his brother was well aware of taking personal responsibility for safety.

But, Green said, he’s also personally witnessed the vital role the Coast Guard plays. Some years ago, he watched the agency rescue hypothermic sailors near Seward within an hour of a call for help.

“That’s something they wouldn’t have been able to do out of Homer,” he said.