LEMOLO — High winds and stormy seas shouldn’t have been enough to swamp Mike Bateman’s seasoned 37-foot fishing trawler in Ne-Si-Ka Bay Wednesday night, but they did.
Bateman was at a loss for an explanation the next morning as he stood on the sandy shores of Lemolo with two salvaged, oil-stained wooden boxes full of computer and camera equipment that had gone down with the ship less than 24 hours before.
What happened? He wasn’t sure. Neither was his father, Gene Bateman, who was also on board when the trawler began to list, take on water and sink.
What the two did agree on as 20 knot winds whipped across the bay was that they had to abandon the 1936 craft, “Gentle Breeze,” which Bateman had recently purchased. As the boat started to go down and the Batemans took to the water in a less-than-seaworthy dinghy, the switchboard at the Poulsbo Fire Department lit up with 911 calls from Lemolo residents who were watching the drama unfold from their front windows.
Fire crews arrived on the scene shortly before 6 p.m., just six minutes after the first call came in, quickly cutting through the waves to save the two men from the frigid waters of Puget Sound. Firefighters launched their rescue boat at Poulsbo Marina in record time and, guided by police officers ashore, sped to the men’s aid.
The Batemans had attempted to seek refuge in the vessel’s six-foot dinghy but the small boat was beginning to sink as well when rescue crews arrived.
“They were bailing that out, too,” explained Bateman’s partner Donya Simkus, as he went over the details with members of the Coast Guard.
The 1936 trawler “was just bought,” Simkus said, adding that the two men were bringing the vessel down to Poulsbo from Port Angeles.
“They were almost home,” she remarked, shaking her head.
Bateman and Simkus are both freelance photographers in Kingston, she said, noting that a lot of camera and computer equipment was damaged. Despite an estimated $5,000 loss (which will be reimbursed through insurance), Simkus said she was just happy both men survived the harrowing experience.
“We’re just happy they’re alive,” she said, before snapping a few shots of the scene on an old Pentax.
It had been a much different setting the night before, as PFD crews took the men and the dinghy aboard the rescue boat and cruised to Poulsbo. Both Gene and Mike were cold and wet when they arrived, but they declined ambulance transport to the hospital. Instead, the Poulsbo Fire Department’s duty chief transported the men by car to a home in the Kingston area.
“They did everything right,” Simkus said, noting that neither Mike nor Gene was at fault. But everything went wrong — almost.
“It’s sort of a mystery. They are not new to boats,” she added.
U.S. Coast Guard officials and Bateman concurred that the stability of the boat was compromised at some point during the last leg of the trip and speculated that lack of ballast may have led to the fishing trawler’s problems.
The boat, Bateman explained, was not taking on water because a light indicating that bilge pumps had engaged never turned on, even when the vessel splayed to a 65-degree angle. The trawler had washed ashore Wednesday night but tidal shift pushed it about 300 feet east by morning. Simkus said although a policy had been prepared, the boat was not insured at the time of sailing. Crews from vessel assistance worked a good portion of Thursday to make the craft seaworthy and had it afloat by the time the tide came in about 4 p.m.
