Three Washington naval architects with deep experience in the North Pacific fishing industry testified this week about serious flaws in a federal regulation that guides crucial stability calculations for ice buildup on the fleet of more than 60 Bering Sea crab boats.
This information has prompted the Coast Guard to reexamine the rule.
The naval architects say the Coast Guard regulation underestimates how much ice can build up on a boat during chill bouts of weather, fails to take into account that it may form unevenly, and also ignores the potential for dense ice within the webbed interior of crab pots. These shortcomings can result in naval architects drawing up instructions that erode safety margins by allowing hazardous numbers of pots to be carried during winter storms that generate freezing spray.