ANCHORAGE, Alaska _ As the crabbing vessel Scandies Rose headed into an area under warnings of high winds and icing southwest of Kodiak on New Year's Eve, the captain called a friend.
Within two hours, a mayday call would come from the vessel before it capsized, leaving five men missing and two rescued from the frigid, heaving waters of the Gulf of Alaska.
But Capt. Gary Cobban Jr., 61, didn't sound concerned on the phone despite the foul weather he encountered, his ex-girlfriend said Thursday.
Cobban, calling on the boat phone at 8 p.m. in Alaska, wished her a happy new year at her home in North Carolina, where it was already midnight, Jeri Lynn Smith said. They talked for maybe 15 minutes, she said.
"When I talked to him he told me the boat was icing and it had a list to it but he didn't sound alarmed. He didn't sound scared," Smith said. "The boat ices. The boat ices every winter. It's just something they deal with. I didn't worry about it."
She woke in the morning to the terrible news of the boat sinking.
"He knew they needed to get in out of the weather," Smith said. "I wouldn't have hung up if I thought he was in crisis."
Two crew members survived for several hours in a life raft before rescuers battling high swells and frigid cold pulled them out early Wednesday morning. But the Coast Guard late Wednesday suspended the search for the five remaining men aboard the vessel.
The Coast Guard, which is investigating the sinking, is not releasing the names of the skipper and crew. On Thursday morning, Coast Guard District 17 spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said the Coast Guard will investigate the cause of the sinking and will release a final report. That process could take up to a year, she said.
Also aboard was Cobban's 30-year-old son, David, according to Smith.
The boat left Kodiak on Dec. 28 after loading pots there, according to Harbormaster Derrik Magnuson.
The crew made a mayday call around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday and reported they were taking on water south of Sutwik Island, which is southwest of Kodiak along the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, according to the Coast Guard.
The National Weather Service had issued gale warnings for the entire southern side of the Alaska Peninsula and a heavy freezing-spray warning for the area the Scandies Rose was in, according to Louise Fode, the agency's warning coordination meteorologist in Anchorage. The spray warning reflected the risk of sea spray flung by high winds onto freezing decks and gear, potentially loading them with heavy ice.
Forecasters were warning of 45-knot winds with heavy freezing spray and seas to 21 feet. It was 15 degrees in the area Tuesday night, Fode said. The water temperature was barely above 40 degrees.
A friend identified one of the survivors as Dean Gribble, 38, and said Gribble described icing on the vessel during a conversation after the rescue.
Gribble was recovering in the hospital at Kodiak on Thursday, Brandon Michael said. The two met fishing about five years ago.
"Basically they started taking ice and listing to the point of no return," Michael said. "That's when they decided it was going to be a mayday and they would be exiting the boat."
