PORT ANGELES — Just when they thought their deployment was over, the crew of the Coast Guard cutter Active got a surprise it won’t soon forget.
The 210-foot cutter was on its was back to Port Angeles after a two-month deployment fighting the drug war off the coasts of California and Mexico when it sailed into the right place at the right time.
Cutter Active was 8 miles away when it got a distress call from a burning fishing vessel off the coast of Long Beach in southern Washington on Aug. 31.
Ens. Samuel Andriessen, the cutter’s support services officer, was on watch when the 60-foot Portlock sent a distress call with its location coordinates.
“In this case, we were in the right place at the right time,” Andriessen said in an interview aboard the Active in Port Angeles last week.
“You could see smoke from six miles away. You could see flames from five miles.”
The two men aboard the Portlock, George Johnson and Michael Summers of Seattle, had acted quickly.
They radioed their coordinates and jumped into a life raft at about 4 p.m. before the fast-spreading fire could overtake them.
By the time the Active — along with a MH-60 Jawhawk helicopter from Air Station Astoria, Ore. — arrived at about 4:30 p.m., the Portlock was fully enflamed. The Portlock was on the Active’s port side.
A small-boat was launched by the cutter to rescue the fishermen from their raft. The men were taken to Astoria on a 47-foot Coast Guard motor lifeboat from Station Cape Disappointment in Southwest Washington.
Johnson and Summers were uninjured.
Meanwhile, the Active crew was ordered to not attempt to extinguish the fire. The Portlock was a lost cause.
The Port of Portland, after consulting the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal officials, ordered the cutter to destroy the Portlock.
It was determined that the boat — and its 400 gallons of diesel fuel — would create greater impact to the coastal environment if it drifted closer to shore.
Coast Guard crews used a 25 millimeter mounted gun near the bow to sink the burning Portlock. Crew members took turns with the gun as part of a real-life training exercise.
The Portlock finally went down about 8 p.m.
Andriessen gave his account in formal manner. He used military time to describe the events.
But when asked if it was fun to blow the burning vessel into oblivion, Adriessen grinned.
“Yeah,” he said. “We certainly made sure it was sunk.”
The cutter Active crew collected data on the wreckage and plotted the exact position of the debris field.
Andrissen, a 23-year-old from Austin, Texas, completed four-years in the Coast Guard Academy just over a year ago. He and many others aboard the cutter was making their first south-of-the-border patrol.
The ship patrolled the seas off California and Mexico’s Baja California peninsula in search of drug smugglers and illegal migrant trafficking.
It also spent a lot of time in San Diego Harbor and participated in Los Angeles Navy Days.
Andrissen said much of the 8,000-nautical-mile patrol was non-eventful, even boring at times.
“You hope to find something — to be at the right place at the right time,” he said.
In its 40 year history, cutter Active has many times patrolled the coasts of Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico, Central America and South America.
Its next deployment begins in December.
Looking back on the rescue of the Portlock crew, Andriessen said the 75-member Active crew handled the situation “exactly as we trained.”
As much fun as it was to blow up the Portlock, Andriessen said the highlight of the patrol was rescuing the two fishermen.
“At the end of the day, that’s really what’s most important,” he said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com
