from the local newspaper
from the local newspaper
By Lee Tolliver
The Virginian-Pilot
? January 16, 2009
VIRGINIA BEACH
B.J. Jenkins shook his head as he hosed off his 41-foot boat. He had finished filleting just-caught rockfish after cutting short Thursday's charter fishing trip.
"It was rough as heck out there," Jenkins said. "I dipped the bow a few times coming back in, and I'm in a pretty big boat.
"And there were people out there in 20-foot center consoles. Crazy, just crazy."
Most marina talk in January concerns the striped bass, or rockfish, angling along coastal Virginia.
But Thursday, the No. 1 topic was the small boat that capsized Wednesday not far outside Lynnhaven Inlet.
Allen Dedrick, 69, and Ned Rokey, 89, died in the accident. Four passengers were rescued. The six were on an annual pilgrimage from Arizona to catch rockfish.
They were fishing in a Tracker Targa 18-foot V-hulled aluminum boat when the outboard motor died. The boat began taking on water and overturned about an hour before the National Weather Service issued small-craft warnings.
According to the manufacturer's Web site, the boat is Coast Guard-approved for up to seven passengers and a combined passenger weight of 1,050 pounds.
Thursday, the consensus among marina owners, charter captains and anglers was that six people in such a small vessel was an accident waiting to happen.
"It was rough out there (Thursday). It was blowing harder" Wednesday, said Jenkins, 41, who also works as a Virginia Beach police officer.
"You see this all the time, too many people in small boats, overloaded. It's almost a surprise that this kind of tragedy doesn't happen more often."
As the frigid winds howled Thursday, churning the southern waters of the Chesapeake Bay into a washing machine, Kenneth Kemp, 75, of Ohio stood on the docks at Long Bay Pointe.
"What were they thinking going out in that little boat?" said Kemp, who had been in Virginia Beach striper fishing on a friend's 29-foot boat. " I've been around boats all my life and something like that just isn't safe... that's all there is to it."
Just down Shore Drive, the parking lot at the Lynnhaven Boat Ramp at Crab Creek was almost empty. One truck and trailer took up space in what usually is a crowded scene. This was where the Arizona boaters launched their Tracker on Wednesday.
Despite the conditions, the mouth of the bay just off Cape Henry was filled with boats fishing for striped bass, Jenkins said, many the same size as the one that turned over Wednesday.
In conditions like those on Wednesday and Thursday, "I'll tell 'em to go stick their nose outside the inlet and think about it," said Connie Barbour, co-owner of Long Bay Pointe Bait and Tackle. "If I would have seen that (Tracker) boat here, I would have told them not to try it."
Nearby, B.J. Jenkins prepared for another charter.
"There were boats out there (Thursday) that were so small, when they went down between two waves, you couldn't even see them," he said. "You would have thought that after (Wednesday), some of them would have thought better about trying something like that.
"So it won't surprise me if this happens again."
Lee Tolliver, (757) 222-5844,
lee.tolliver@pilotonline.com
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By Duane Bourne
The Virginian-Pilot
? January 16, 2009
VIRGINIA BEACH
In shin-deep water, Ric Rokey tried to restart the outboard engine. Without power, his boat was being pummeled by unrelenting winds and 3 - to 4-foot waves. It began to list.
Allen Dedrick rushed to hand out life vests to the five other fishermen aboard the 18-foot Tracker and slipped into one himself. But before the others were able to get them on, the boat capsized, tossing everyone into the 45-degree water not far from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
The survivors, the ones in condition to talk, gave Virginia Beach investigators the first accounts of what happened when their aluminum boat overturned Wednesday morning.
Two Arizona men died, Dedrick, 69, and Ric Rokey's father, Ned, 89. The others were rescued.
On Thursday, police still were sorting through forensic photographs and examining the boat. An autopsy of Ned Rokey confirmed he died from drowning and hypothermia. Autopsy results are pending for Dedrick.
For five years, the anglers had come to Virginia Beach to go after striped bass. They were here in December, too, but Wednesday morning it all went wrong.
The six men, between 62 and 89, arrived at the Lynnhaven Inlet city boat ramp next to the Lesner Bridge before 8 a.m. They parked their white Dodge Ram and paid to put their boat in the water.
Soon they were motoring under the Lesner Bridge, headed east toward Cape Henry. About a mile out, they ran into trouble, police spokesman Adam Bernstein said.
A wave struck the side of the boat, stalling the 50-horsepower Mercury motor. At 8:57, someone radioed "Mayday, mayday" for help. And as the boat took on water, the men shifted their weight, but they couldn't keep it from capsizing.
In the water, the men held onto the engine attached to the boat's stern. Around them, a cooler and life jackets were scattered in the water. Moments later, Dedrick, who owned the boat, lost his grip and the current pulled him away, Bernstein said.
No one could reach him.
The men had been in the water about a half-hour before a Coast Guard helicopter lowered a bucket at 9:25 a.m. Two survivors were able to climb on top of the overturned boat. They were lifted into the chopper.
The other survivors and Dedrick were pulled from the water by a Coast Guard boat and launch captains from the Maryland Pilots Association. Beach police found Ned Rokey and started CPR, Bernstein said.
On Thursday, more than 24 hours after the accident, only one of the four survivors had been released from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The others were being treated for hypothermia. Police declined to release their names.
Only one other boat left that ramp on Wednesday.
Duane Bourne, (757) 222-5150,
duane.bourne@pilotonline.com
