Trident to acquire factory trawler Starbound

Here's a press release that obviously leaves some important questions unanswered.

Starbound victim identified

The crewman who died on the factory trawler Starbound was 19-year-old Daniel Christensen, the King County Medical Examiner's Office said.

The office released these findings:

Cause of death: electrocution
Manner of death: accident

The Seattle Police Department provided the following narrative from the incident report. Names were redacted (deleted), per department policy.

SPD GO 2016-169297

On 05/15/2016, I was assigned as 3B3 as a uniformed Officer. At approximately 0102 hours, I responded to a DOA at 1441 N Northlake Wy.

Upon arrival, SFD (Seattle Fire Department) led Sgt Harris and myself onto a large ship and down into the lower section of the boat. SFD said that the Deceased, ______, had been accidentally electricuted in a large commercial electrical panel.

I investigated the scene and there were no signs to suggest that ______'s death was not accidental. I photographed the scene and I later uploaded the pictures into DEMS.

I then contacted the Worker who discovered ______'s body, ______. ______ stated that ______ arrived on the ship for work at approximately 1745 hours. ______ said that when ______ was not seen around 0000 hours for lunch, the workers all began to search the ship for him. ______ told me that he discovered ______'s body around 0045 hours, slumped down inside of a commercial electrical panel.

I called the Medical Examiner, ______, who arrived at approximately 0307 hours. ______ photographed and investigated the scene. I then requested that SFD respond to assist in extracting ______'s body up out of the ship.

Starbound update

We still know very little about a death that occurred a week ago aboard the factory trawler Starbound.

The vessel was moored in Seattle at the time of what is believed to have been a workplace accident.

The Starbound recently had undergone extensive modification at a shipyard in Anacortes. The work included stretching the vessel to bring its length overall to about 300 feet.

The Starbound is among the largest fishing vessels working off Alaska, harvesting pollock in the Bering Sea.

An attorney for Starbound LLC told Deckboss on Friday that a crewmember was "found unresponsive" in or around the engine room of the vessel last Saturday evening.

The attorney wouldn't discuss the circumstances of the death. He said he was not at liberty to provide the victim's name or age.

The company is cooperating with local authorities and with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, which are investigating, the attorney said.

We've been unable to collect any useful information thus far from OSHA or the Coast Guard.

Ownership of the vessel is complex.

One minority owner is APICDA, the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association. Based in Juneau, the association holds rights under the federal community development quota (CDQ) program to harvest pollock on behalf of Western Alaska villages.

APICDA's latest annual report offers this description of Starbound LLC:

STARBOUND, LLC

APICDA Joint Ventures owns 20% of this pollock trawl catcher processor. Other partners include Aleutian Spray Fisheries (65%), Barry Ohai (10%) and Karl Bratvold (5%). Aleutian Spray serves as the managing partner. This vessel harvests and processes approximately 80% of APICDA's pollock CDQ quota.

According to its website, Aleutian Spray is a family business established in 1969 by Henry Swasand.

Death aboard factory trawler reported

Deckboss is looking into a report of a death last Saturday aboard the Seattle-based factory trawler Starbound.

So far, we've been unable to obtain an official account of what happened.

Crewman aboard Starbound needs medevac

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter yesterday hoisted an ailing crewman off the factory trawler Starbound in the Bering Sea, about 69 miles southeast of St. Paul.

The 44-year-old man was reported to be suffering from symptoms of a heart attack.