F/V American Star; Unimak Island, Alaska

Unimak Island, Alaska | 2000-Feb-11

Initial Notification: On the morning of February 11, 2000, a fire broke out on the F/V American Star, a 140-foot crabber/tender, just south of Unimak Island. A mayday rousted a helicopter from the deck of the USCG Mellon, and successfully removed the crew of five from the burning vessel. At this point, the unmanned vessel was only a few miles offshore and the wind was 30 knots from the southeast blowing it towards a grounding on the southeast side of Unimak Island. With rocky shores to roughly one mile either side, the vessel grounded in the afternoon on a sand and gravel beach. The steel hull remained intact, and no pollution was observed. Then began a month long dance with the weather as the salvor, Dan Magone from Dutch Harbor, tried several times to reach the vessel only to be thwarted by the weather and high seas. Finally large bladders were flown in by the Coast Guard, and the salvor successfully pumped the fuel and removed the drums from the vessel, with no pollution to the environment. NOAA provided support to the USCG by keeping track of the weather and weather forecasts, and by coordinating information from the resource agencies on sensitivities in the vicinity. Grounding occurred only one mile from the mouth of the Lazaref River, a salmon spawning stream where there may be chum and/or pink salmon eggs in the intertidal gravels. Other information from the USFWS indicated that loose concentrations of waterfowl including Steller's eiders (threatened species), scoters, emperor geese, and cormorants had been observed in the vicinity only 3 days earlier. USCG district 1717. Keyword: none.