Crabbing boat sinks off Oregon

TILLAMOOK, Ore. – A 45-foot crabbing boat broke up in rough seas off Tillamook Bay before dawn Tuesday, leaving one fisherman dead on a beach and two others missing, officials said.

Sheriff’s deputies and volunteers combed a stretch of beach 7 miles long and a half-mile wide near the jetty south of the bay, hoping for signs that the two missing fishermen had survived, said Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson.

Coast Guard helicopters and boats searched offshore, but no sign was found of the two missing men.

Before dawn on Tuesday, searchers found the body of 30-year-old Jeff King of Garibaldi on the beach, along with survival suits and an empty life raft, officials said.

Also on the beach was the stern of the Catherine M., a crabbing boat.

The Coast Guard is investigating why the boat went down. One possibility is that it took on water and broke up in the surf, said Petty Officer Jeff Pollinger of the U.S. Coast Guard.

King had recently gotten work aboard the Catherine M., Anderson said. One of the two missing men – 30-year-old Trona Griffin of Garibaldi – was also a recently hired deckhand, Anderson said.

The other missing fisherman is the boat’s captain and owner, 32-year-old Craig Larsen of Hammond.

Anderson said Larsen’s wife talked with her husband by phone the night before. The skipper told her his boat was returning with about 1,200 pounds of crabs to sell, Anderson said.

She had planned to pick him up Tuesday morning, Anderson said.

Seas in the area where the boat capsized had been rough, with 10- to 12-foot waves, said Pollinger, the Coast Guard spokesman.

Officials first got word of the accident around 1:30 a.m. when two vessels reported seeing distress flares, said Chief Petty Officer Keith Alholm of the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard discovered a debris field less than half an hour later, Alholm said. There was a strong smell of diesel fuel at the site, he said.