Cats Survive sinking $ 4 another boat

Topaz asleep at the wheel of the Sea Princess.

Cynthia and Mark With new paint and just ready to go back in the water

Here are details that you need to know.

We do have insurance on the hull of the boat, it just covers the loss of the boat itself. The boat was not completely paid for so there goes much of that. It does not cover all the fishing gear, the lost load of tuna, the lost season this year or now the lost seasons to come. We have been going to sea and coming back with a boat to go again for over 25 years. It has been hard for me not to think about the projects I have, had, planned for many more improvements on the Sea Princess. We had been working on the boat for 2 years. We bought it knowing it needed work, also knowing that we had the experience and knowledge to pull it together and bring this boat back to life. She was in a sad state when we bought her. The first year we spent most of our time working on wood projects and some mechanical issues. We fished just two weeks that first year with this boat. That means not much income, all going the other direction. The second year we fished about 50% of the season, the rest of the time was still working on mechanical issues as they appeared. Still funding going the wrong direction. We spent three months this spring spending more money working on her to make sure everything, ( I thought) was in working order. We poured that last of our money into the fuel tanks and went to sea fishing. Every thing was working great! For 7 days we were catching fish with every thing running normally. Cynthia and I just that day made the comment "This year we are going to do really great" to get back all we had invested, time and money and every thing would be just great again.

A freak thing happened. The US Coast Guard thinks that the accident was caused by a leaky fuel return line that happened very quickly. The engine ingested the fuel when it should have been air and it blew up. Causing a chain reaction and massive explosion.

Ask any of my fishing friends and they will tell you I am very particular about my work. A fellow fisherman made the comment on the VHF radio just after this happened, Mark will not go to sea if there is even a splinter loose.

The funds raised here will be put toward the purchase of another boat. I hope one that will not require so much work.

Here is a link to the news story as it broke.

http://www.ktvz.com/news/la-pine-couple-and-cats-survive-explosion-sinking/-/413192/21453336/-/item/0/-/14h2477z/-/index.html

This is our story as told by my sister Debra, I do not think I could do a better job.

Seafaring Cats Survived Explosion at Sea, Rescued as Boat Sank (Owners Also Rescued)

Oregonians Mark and Cynthia Schneider rolled out of their bunks and went to work aboard their fishing vessel "Sea Princess" as usual Monday morning . Little did they know everything was going to very literally blow up later in the day and they and their two kitties, Topaz and Jasper, would become the characters in their own real life action packed adrenaline rush drama.

Their work is a bit unconventional. Married for 32 years, the couple has fished together commercially for 25 years. They sold the boat they had owned for 17 years "Princess" just a couple of summers ago in order to buy a bigger boat with greater holding capacity and more stability in rough seas. They put in uncountable hours, overcoming numerous challenges with the 60 ft. "Sea Princess," remodeling, sanding, painting, troubleshooting, sweating, repairing, reconditioning, testing, and installing new systems where needed.

Their fishing season in 2012 was a trying one with many mechanical problems to work through. They limped in from sea more than once. More repairs needed, more money invested. After a long frugal winter, spring 2013 came and it was back to work on the boat.

After three very full months working 12-14 hours every day they finally felt everything was ready to go. They went out to sea July 30th and according to an e-mail from Mark that day, "The boat is all painted up pretty and everything is in working order."

Theirs is grueling work:.up to 16 hour days, catching each and every tuna individually on a line, carefully handling each fish so as not to bruise it and immediately chilling it down to preserve maximum freshness. They catch and handle upwards of 200 fish on a good day. They sell their catch under their own brand, "Catch of the Sea" as pouched tuna to New Seasons Market, a grocery store chain in the greater area dedicated to supporting local sustainable agriculture and small businesses, as well as selling retail on the web site catchofthesea.com.

All their hard work was paying off, things were running efficiently and the tuna were biting. Mark made a routine check in the engine room Monday evening, August 5^th. Nothing was out of order. He went back up to the cabin area and about half an hour later he heard the main backfire a couple times and then, "BOOM". Suddenly there was a huge explosion. Cynthia was thrown backwards 5-6 feet. Mark got tossed on to the galley table. Both Mark and Cynthia suffered flash burns on their faces. Luckily they had their ear plugs in and rain gear on which protected them.

Mark related, "My first thought when I looked at the damage to the port side of the boat was, "˜How am I going to fix this?'" He jumped down the ladder into the engine room to assess the damage there, thinking that the explosion must have blown out the caulking between the planks and he would get pumps running. He saw ocean and sky where there should have been boat hull. Water was starting to rush in that no pump would keep up with.

Cynthia got into her survival suit and gathered her purse and a few personal items strewn in the chaos left in the living area in the wake of the blast. Mark frantically searched for their two kitties they had rescued from animal shelters. Topaz and Jasper were hiding, terrified. Cynthia pleaded with Mark to get into his survival suit and trust the kitties to follow their instincts and swim. Mark finally gave in, got into his survival suit and went overboard after radioing the Coast Guard they were abandoning ship. Cynthia had already called their fishing partners who were a couple miles away.

They waited, floating in the cold, dark watching with despair as all their hard work and their livelihood slowly sank, grateful that they had both survived without major injury and they had each other, not knowing what the future would hold, but knowing they would face it together. Their friends' boat Peso II arrived and they were pulled out of the water, dried off, put in clothing many sizes to big, but dry and warm.

They began pulling odd pieces of floating debris out of the water and continued to watch "Sea Princess" sink. Wait, there was Topaz swimming! They were able to rescue her and it was a happy reunion. Did Jasper survive? Then they saw Jasper on the bow of the sinking boat. Jasper waited until the bow completely disappeared under water and was forced to swim. When he got a safe distance from the sinking bulk, they were able to rescue him as well. The family was complete. Aboard the Peso II it was a 16 hour run back into port.

"It took about 45 minutes for the boat to completely go under," related Mark, still in shock after the ordeal. "I don't even know what happened, exactly, but whatever it was, it happened fast. I don't know if something cracked or a pinhole leak opened up. Fuel vaporized and ignited. It was like a bomb going off. The outcome would have been very different if I had been in the engine room when it happened. I wouldn't be here telling you the story. I keep feeling like it has all been a bad dream."

Now they are home in La Pine, trying to pick up the pieces and make a plan for the future as best they can. This is a huge emotional loss for them. Fishing and boats are their life, not just their livelihood. The financial loss for them is huge as well, 25 years of working up to a boat in this class, all gone in moments. Many personal items are gone as they lived on the boat and it was their home in the summer. All the accumulated fishing gear and related items are gone, some of which are not manufactured anymore and can't be replaced. They invested everything they had getting this boat up to Marks' standards of safety and maintenance, which according to his buddies is much higher than most. Comments were made by others in the fishing community just after "Sea Princess" sank, "If this could happen to Mark and Cynthia it could happen to any of us out here."

"I'm thankful for all the thought and preparation for potential disaster aboard a boat at sea that we put in," Mark stated. "You never think it will happen to you, but we were always aware it does happen and we needed to be prepared." He had just taken a refresher US Coast Guard training course this spring to make sure he had the latest information about survival at sea.


Thank you very much for taking the time to read our story.

You may also be interested in taking a look at our web site catchofthesea.com