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Lady Mary owner's theory says ship's wave sank boat
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LOWER TOWNSHIP - Royal "Fuzzy" Smith Sr. believes a big wave may have killed his two sons, a brother and a distant cousin, as well as two missing crewmen, in the pre-dawn hours on March 24 far from his dockside home here on Schellenger's Landing.
Smith, however, doesn't believe that wave came from Mother Nature.
Smith has seen the video the New Jersey State Police took of the Lady Mary at its final resting place 65 miles off the coast. He has seen the video and still pictures scuba divers have brought back from 210 feet below the surface. Smith also has seen pictures of the Cap Beatrice and the big bulbous bow that pushes a wall of water ahead of the massive container ship.
He believes the Cap Beatrice sent water over the Lady Mary's side that ran down the deck, through the open sliding door to the scallop cutting room and into the engine room. This shorted out electrical systems and made the boat unstable. It quickly sank the 71-foot scalloper.
"That's what swamped the boat. If it was calm, no problem, but it wasn't. There were 12-foot seas. That's a lot of sea. Now she's waterlogged and she doesn't recoup," Smith said.
Smith believes if the cutting room door had been closed, it would have made a big difference in the outcome.
The bodies of Smith's only children, Royal Smith Jr. and Timothy Smith, were recovered later that morning by the Coast Guard. In the following weeks, his brother Tarzon Smith was recovered by scuba divers and a scallop boat netted the body of his cousin Frankie Credle. The bodies of crewmen Frank Reyes and Jorge Alberto Ramos Arteaga have not been found.
Smith noted that lone Lady Mary survivor Jose Luis Arias was asleep and did not wake to the sound of a collision. Tim Smith woke up Arias, who said he immediately noticed water in the boat.
"The bulbous bow pushes water ahead of it, so it's a soft hit," Smith said.
Lady Mary attorney Steve Weeks notes that when the fishing vessel Dictator was hit by a cargo ship a few weeks later, there were eerie similarities. It sent a "pressure wave" onto the Dictator first and then the bulbous bow, which cargo ships have for increased efficiency, hit the rudder area and caused damages very similar to what pictures are showing on the Lady Mary.
"The Dictator is bigger than the Lady Mary. Maybe they could handle the water better. Also, we had penetration of the hull and they didn't have hull penetration," Weeks said.
Smith, who got his sons into scalloping 25 years ago and fished with them until three years ago before becoming dockside manager of the Lady Mary, said the crew may have been asleep.
Smith has a slightly different view of the final moments of the Lady Mary than the scenario portrayed by a dive team that has investigated the wreck.
The dive team believes the scallop dredge was out and the crew's final moments were spent trying to bring it in and right the boat. They said the boat took 15 to 30 minutes to sink.
Smith said he communicated with the crew the previous day and told them to get some rest. He believes the dredge was in the boat and the crew was sleeping. He notes Credle was found wearing his boxer shorts and Tarzon was wearing pajamas and no shoes. They would have fishing gear on if they were working. They would have survival suits on if they had time to put them on. He believes the Lady Mary sank much more quickly than anybody realizes.
"If they had 15 minutes, they'd all have survival suits on. Arias came into the galley and said there was water to his knee. They didn't have time," Smith said.
He points to a picture the divers got in the scallop cutting room. A survival suit is laid out on the floor as though somebody were ready to put it on. In the ghostly-looking wheelhouse two radio handsets are dangling as though somebody were talking on them and never had time to hang them back up.
Smith still wonders about the Alexandria Dawn, a New York boat that electronic tracking shows took a strange zigzag course next to the drifting Lady Mary during its final hours. He theorizes gear between the boats may have become entangled before the Cap Beatrice arrived. The Coast Guard has sent investigators to check the Alexandria Dawn, but even Smith said this boat would not have sunk the Lady Mary.
Smith agrees with the divers that the bulbous bow could have caused the extensive damage to the aft of the Lady Mary, disabling the steering and propulsion systems. The zinc was knocked right off the rudder. The propeller shaft was bent downward while the stern ramp was split right at a weld. A ramp brace rammed right through the five-sixteenth-inch steel transom.
Smith believes the bulbous bow could have jerked the starboard outrigger up and thrown the stabilizer out of the water onto the deck, as underwater pictures show. It would have made the Lady Mary less stable, and with water on board and 12-foot seas, may have made for a quick ending.
Smith also points to a picture of a roller bar at the bottom of the stern ramp. Old scrapes removed the paint and have rust around them. But on one scrape the paint is gone and there is shiny metal. There could be a vessel out there with red paint on it from the Lady Mary.
Smith, who acknowledges anything about the Lady Mary at this point "is just theories," said his lawyer has advised him not to talk. There could be lawsuits. Smith said he only cares about getting answers.
"It's not going to bring them back. I still want to know what happened," Smith said.
E-mail Richard Degener:
Posted in Breaking, Cape_may on Saturday, June 27, 2009 6:15 am Updated: 5:41 pm.
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