July 12, 2o23 — The Gloucester, Mass., trawler Grace Marie likely sank when its doubler-plated hull failed under the engine room in July 2022, sending it to the bottom 80 miles offshore after its crew were rescued without injury, according to a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Although doubler plating can be used as a temporary repair solution, it is not generally suitable as a permanent repair for a vessel’s hull,” the NTSB report warns. “Vessel owners should crop out wasted steel on the hull and replace it by inserting new plating, instead of covering it up with doubler plating.”
The 65.3’x21’ Grace Marie had been fishing for two days, loading up 70,000 pounds of redfish, close to the fish hold’s 80,000-pound capacity. The captain and crew had turned to head for another area to fish on July 8, 2022, when the engine room began flooding around 10 p.m. The crew was unable to control flooding with the bilge pumps, finally abandoning ship to be rescued by another fishing vessel nearby.
While underway at 9:50 p.m., an engine room bilge high-level sensor alarmed in the wheelhouse. The crew later told investigators that engine room bilge high-level alarms were normal when the vessel was underway and fishing, as crew quarters sinks, deck drains and fish hold overflows drained to the bilge . (Many of the vessel’s accommodation sinks and deck drains fed into the engine room bilge. Crewmembers told investigators that they would typically receive an alarm once per day; the alarm would normally clear after several minutes of pumping.