I was one of he boats out there that got a late start. There were no forecasts for 13' seas. They were normal halibut fishing forcast that turned ugly. On the video of My Wife, is not even as bad as it got. It was 13' at 4 seconds and all washboard. We went through 15'-20'ers that were stacked close. More than once I had went over a wave to nose into green water. The water would hit the windshield with such force it would force up and explode into the bottom of the roof coming into the cabin through the canvas. We had water fairly deep several times in the back of the boat. the scuppers were under water and wouldn't drain very fast at slow speeds. I would guess we might have seen 40 MPH winds. I would have to turn the boat to get the scuppers above the water line. I watched my switches and ignition switches getting wet from time to time, but they held up. I was praying my ignitions switches would not short out. if you had any equipment failure out there on Tuesday, you were in trouble.

I was talking to the two boats in trouble. We dropped lines and double headered. Both fish were lost. I would not let them go back down and made them reel in so we could go. In 5 minutes I could see it building. We got out in 1.5 hours and it took 6 hours to get back. We were down to 4 MPH at the last. I watched the Ranger getting kicked all around on the way back and its a big charter boat. The Astoria CG helicopter came over us for a while and made sure we were doing OK on the way back. It was definitely a test of equipment. I have two bilge pumps and one is a 3700 GPH just for safety. My windshield wipers went out about 7 miles out as did three other PSA Sno-King buddies. I would not let anyone near the gunnels or out from under the roof. When the wipers went out, I had a very hard time judging the wave heights and widths.

It was like driving over and quartering houses 20' apart. They were very steep waves and I am very sorry for their loss. No one would have left the dock if they would have known how bad it was going to get. Your family and loss is in our prayers.