Fishing boat turned parallel to wave before capsizing

GARIBALDI, Ore. --A charter fishing boat battered by rough surf turned parallel to the tall wave that flipped it over just before the capsizing that killed at least nine people, survivors said Sunday.

"We went through a couple rough waves and turned north to try to get around a pretty large wave but then it crashed into the side," said Tyler Bohnet, 28, of Canby. He was on a fishing trip with his father, Sigmund Bohnet, who died in the Saturday morning accident off the Oregon coast aboard the 32-foot Taki Tooo.

Two men remained missing in the capsizing, but an ocean search was called off Sunday morning because they could not have survived so long in the 50-degree water.

Eight people, including Mark Hamlett and his sons Chris and Daniel, survived by swimming a few hundred yards toward land.

Hamlett told KOIN-TV of Portland there were two 12- to 15-foot waves, followed by one that was at least 20 feet high.

He said the captain "turned from the west to the north and was parallel to the wave, and I mean, I saw it coming.

"When we rolled, I did not expect to take another breath," said Hamlett, of Portland.

National Transportation Safety Board official John Goglia said it would take time to determine the cause of the capsizing. He said Sunday evening that maintenance had been done on the boat's throttle several days before the accident, but it was unclear whether that work played a role.

Goglia also raised questions about the decision to send the small vessel out. Rough conditions had closed the northern Oregon harbor to recreational boats, but not to charter boats.

"If the surf was worse yesterday than it is today, I would have some issues going out in a boat this size," Goglia said Sunday, when the ocean was calmer and restrictions for recreational boats had been lifted. "But that may be my personal fear."

Three other charter fishing boats had left safely from the same area Saturday morning, said Tillamook County Sheriff's Department marine deputy Paul Fournier.

Goglia told reporters the investigation will examine the condition of the ocean when the boat set out early Saturday, as well as the boat itself and its equipment.

Wave broadsided

The Taki Tooo had been filled with fathers, sons and friends out for a Father's Day weekend fishing trip. It had just cleared a long, rocky jetty extending from the mouth of Tillamook Bay, an area known for high waves and swirling currents, when a wave broadsided it.

Barry Sundberg and his friends had gone on a fishing trip together every year for the last 10 years, said his wife, Marsha, of Cheney, Wash. He and Tim Albus of Madras remained missing Sunday.

"He died doing something he loved, and we're all going to miss him. It won't be the same without him," she said. "It's one thing you never think about -- your spouse dying away from you and you can't say goodbye to him because you don't know where he's at."

The search for bodies continued Sunday along the beach, where federal investigators collected the remaining soaked life jackets that had washed up from the wreck.

Investigators' most definite conclusion about Saturday's capsizing at the mouth of Tillamook Bay concerned the importance of life jackets. The boat's orange vests were worn by all eight survivors and none of those found dead.

Bohnet said most people on the deck were thrown off the boat when the wave hit.

"I was able to swim to a life raft that was floating but I kept getting knocked off it until I couldn't get on it again," he said. "Then I tried swimming to shore until I got to shallow enough water that some men came out and helped me."

Coast Guard Master Chief Lars Kent said that after a witness reported seeing the boat capsize, people on the beach, including the pastor of a local church, helped pull some of the survivors from the water and help them to shore.

The survivors -- ages 13 to 48 -- were treated at a hospital for hypothermia and released. The dead ranged in age from their late teens to their 50s.

The nine people who died Saturday were: Richard Hidalgo of Green Bay, Wis.; Dennis Tipton and Kathy Corley, both of Ukiah; Tim Albus' brother, Steve Albus, of Ephrata, Wash.; Sigmund Bohnet, from Florida; Edward Loll of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Larry Frick of Spokane, Wash.; Terry Galloway of Portland; and the boat's captain, Doug Davis of Garibaldi.

The survivors were Bohnet; the Hamletts; Brian Loll of Vancouver, Wash.; Richard Forsman of Vancouver, Wash.; Dale Brown of Portland; and Tamara Buell, the boat's deckhand and Mick Buell's daughter.

Buell, 22, offered her condolences to the victims' families Sunday but declined to comment on the accident.

The Taki Tooo was believed to have enough life jackets for all aboard, although passengers and crew are not required by law to wear them.

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Associated Press writers Aviva L. Brandt in Portland and Elizabeth M. Gillespie in Seattle contributed to this report.